By DPA,
Jakarta : An undersea earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale struck near the western coast of Sumatra Sunday, injuring at least four people, officials said.
The quake struck at 2.38 p.m. (0738 GMT) and was centred in the Indian Ocean, 43 km southeast of Mentawai Islands, Indonesia’s National Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said in a statement.
Epicentre was 32 km beneath the seabed, but there was no threat of a tsunami, the statement said.
A series of aftershocks ranging between 5.2 and 5.6 on the Richter scale followed the initial quake, officials said.
At least four people were injured after being hit by falling ceiling at a shopping mall in the West Sumatra capital of Padang, while hundreds of visitors scrambled to the exit doors in panic.
In the Mentawai Islands off the western coast of West Sumatra, the closest to the quake’s epicentre, the walls of a number of buildings were cracked but no injuries were reported.
“We have so far received no reports of injury or casualties from the Mentawai area,” said Ade Edward, an official at the province’s disaster management centre.
Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation, sits along the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.
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 half a million people homeless.