A 6.2 magnitude earthquake on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, killed at least seven people, injured hundreds and damaged many buildings on Friday, the country’s disaster mitigation agency said, as panicked residents fled to more remote areas. safe.
The epicenter of the earthquake was six kilometers northeast of the city of Majene, at a depth of 10 kilometers.
Initial information from the country’s disaster mitigation agency showed that four people died and 637 were injured in Majene, while three more were killed and two dozen injured in the neighboring Mamuju area.
Thousands of people fled their homes in search of safety when the earthquake struck just after 1 am local time on Friday morning, damaging at least 60 homes, the agency said.
The earthquake was felt strongly for about seven seconds, but it did not trigger a tsunami warning.
Videos on social media showed residents fleeing to higher places on motorcycles and a child trapped under the rubble as people tried to remove the rubble with their bare hands.
Several buildings were seriously damaged, including two hotels, the West Sulawesi governor’s office and a shopping mall, Sudirman Samual, a journalist based in Mamuju, north of the epicenter, he told Reuters.
At least one route to Mamuju has been cut, he said, because of damage to a bridge.
Hours earlier on Thursday, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck the same district, damaging several homes.
Indonesia’s disaster agency said a series of earthquakes in the past 24 hours had caused at least three landslides and the electricity supply had been cut off.
Occupying the Pacific ‘ring of fire’, Indonesia, a nation with high tectonic activity, is regularly hit by earthquakes.
In 2018, a devastating 6.2 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the city of Palu in Sulawesi, killing thousands.