Moderate earthquake jolts East Java

JAKARTA: A moderate earthquake jolted a small town in East Java province -- the latest in a series of tremblers to rock the archipelago in recent months, an official said on Tuesday.

The earthquake, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, shook the town of Malang, over 700 kilometers southeast of Jakarta, on Monday night, Hariyanto, the local meteorological and geophysics agency head, was quoted as saying by the state-run Antara news agency.

No casualties or damage were reported from the quake, which was centered at 8.52 degrees latitude south and 112.67 degrees longitude east, Hariyanto said.

A series of moderate and strong earthquakes have shaken the archipelago in the last few months, with the largest being the magnitude-9.0 quake on Dec. 26 that triggered tsunamis in the region and left more than 230,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia. -- dpa