Earthquake kills one in N. Maluku

Yongker Rumthe, The Jakarta Post, Manado, North Sulawesi

An earthquake hit Morotai Island in North Maluku, killing a child, injuring seven and damaging 180 houses.

Chief of the N. Maluku Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) Teguh Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Tuesday that the temblor, measuring 6.4 on the Richter Scale, hit the province at 4:34 a.m. local time and was felt throughout the province and in North Sulawesi.

He said that according to reports the local BMG office received from Morotai, the quake and its strong aftershock badly damaged around 180 houses in Sakita and Kuruha villages, Berebere district, some 225 kilometers north of the North Maluku capital of Ternate.

"A two-year-old child was killed and seven people were injured," he said, adding that he was awaiting further reports from the island and other areas that might have been affected by the quake.

Udi Slamet, chief of Sultan Babula Airport in Ternate, confirmed the earthquake and said his office had difficulties making radio contact with authorities on the island because of a blackout. The tremor felled several electricity poles across the island.

North Maluku is hit by hundreds of earthquakes annually, as it is part of an earthquake-prone belt that ranges from Tarutung in North Sumatra, through Bengkulu to Liwa in Lampung and on to southern Java, Sumbawa island in West Nusa Tenggara, Flores island in East Nusa Tenggara, Sorong in Papua and central Maluku.

The worst of recent earthquakes to hit North Maluku occurred in 1998, killing 37 people, injuring hundreds of others and damaging 969 houses and public buildings in Mangole, Sula Islands.