National

Palu and Manado Hit by Earthquakes
Monday, 11 July, 2005 | 21:07 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Palu, Central Sulawesi:At around 8am Eastern Indonesian Time (10/07), the city of Palu and its surrounding areas were hit by a 5.7 Richter-scale earthquake that lasted for one minute.

The earthquake was centered at the 0.72 Southern Latitude, 191.97 Eastern Longitude at a depth of 30 kilometer underground, 74.1 kilometers from the southern part of Palu, in Lekatu village, Palolo sub district, Donggala, Central Sulawesi.

The earthquake was also felt in the Poso, Parigi and Donggala regencies.

Three sub districts hit by the earthquake included Kulawi sub district in Donggala regency, Palolo sub district in Donggala regency and North Ore sub district, Poso regency.

Palu City spokesperson Kasman Lembah said that information about the earthquake had been received via radio and he hoped that citizens of Palu would not flee the city.

“They should not be worried as the earthquake took place in the shore rather than in the sea. So, there was no tsunami,” said Lembah.

A 5.9 Richter-scale earthquake also rocked some parts of North Sulawesi at around 6.07pm Eastern Indonesian Time on Saturday (09/07).

The quake took place in the Maluku Sea around 250 km to the east of Manado and was felt at around 1-2 Modified Mercally Intensity (MMI) in Manado and the surrounding areas.

The earthquake was centered at 2.8 Northern Latitude and 126.5 Eastern Longitude at a depth of 30 kilometers below the sea surface.

“The quake was caused by friction between Maluku Sea and Halmahera Sea plates,” said North Sulawesi Meteorology and Geophysics Subardjo.

At the time of this report, there had been no news of any deaths from the two earthquakes. (Ahmad Heid and Darlis Muhamad-Tempo News Room)