Powerful earthquake strikes Indonesia's Papua, kills three - 4th Update
The Earth Times, Sun, 04 Jan 2009
Jakarta - A series of powerful earthquakes on Sunday morning rattled the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua, cutting off powerline, killing at least three people and injuring dozens of others, officials said. The quake, which hit at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, struck at 4:43 am (1943 GMT Saturday), about 135 kilometres north-west of Manokwari, the provincial capital of West Papua, the BMG said.
A series of aftershocks followed the quake, sparking a panic among residents and deterring them from returning to their homes.
A more powerful aftershock, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre on land about 76 kilometres north-west of Manokwari, struck about two hours later but triggered no tsunami, said Fauzi, a BMG official in Jakarta.
Thousands of residents including children and the elderly could be seen thronging the roads of the blacked-out Manokwari town, and they remained outdoors even after the tsunami warning was lifted, local police officials said.
Two three-story hotels, the Mutiara and Kalidingin, collapsed following the second quake, officials said.
An official at Manokwari general hospital said one person had died and 26 others were injured, two of them in intensive care.
"We also received reports from the field that two other persons were still trapped under the rubble after Mutiara Hotel collapsed," the official who identified himself as Roni said by telephone.
In addition, another three people were pulled alive from the rubble at Mutiara Hotel, reported detik.com online news portal.
A number of damaged buildings and homes were reported in Sorong district town but no reports of casualties.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," the edge of a tectonic plate prone to seismic upheaval.
A major earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck in December 2004, leaving more than 170,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia's Aceh province and around 500,000 homeless.
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