6.5 Quake Strikes Indonesia; 9 Killed
A powerful earthquake rocked parts of central Indonesia on Thursday, triggering a tsunami and killing at least nine people, news reports and officials said.
The magnitude 6.5 quake hit at 11:21 a.m., damaging hundreds of homes and buildings along a wide stretch of Sulawesi island’s east coast and the nearby islands of Peleng and Banggai, according to the official Antara news agency.
The quake was centered beneath the Molucca Sea, about 65 miles off Peleng, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said. Peleng is about 1,300 miles northeast of Jakarta, the capital.
Sevatius Suyitno, chief of the geophysics agency in Luwuk, a town on the eastern coast of central Sulawesi, said 80% of the buildings on Banggai were damaged.
Officials said the death toll probably would rise.
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