A powerful earthquake and aftershock shook the Indonesian resort island of Bali and other parts of the country on Tuesday, sparking panic but no immediate reports of damage or casualties
Aug 28, 2023 6:41pm ET
• 2 min reading
DENPASAR, Indonesia — A powerful earthquake and aftershock struck the Indonesian resort island of Bali and other parts of the country on Tuesday, sparking panic, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
According to the US Geological Survey, the center of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred 181 kilometers (112 miles) northeast of Gili Air, a tiny island off the coast of Lombok Island off Bali, at a depth of 513.5 kilometers (319 Miles).
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said there was no risk of a tsunami but warned of possible aftershocks. The agency put the preliminary strength at 7.4. Deviations in the first measurements are common.
A magnitude 5.4 aftershock struck the same area minutes later just before dawn.
Many residents and tourists rushed from their homes and hotels to higher ground after reporting violent shock waves. However, the situation returned to normal after they received text messages telling them the quake had no potential to trigger a tsunami.
“I thought the walls of the hotel were going to fall down,” one Australian tourist said on social media.
People in neighboring provinces of East Java, Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara also felt the tremors and panicked as homes and buildings swayed for several seconds.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to frequent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis due to its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines that bends the Pacific Ocean.
An earthquake in hilly Karangasem in 2021 triggered landslides and cut off at least three villages, killing at least three people.
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck the city of Cianjur in West Java on November 21, killing at least 331 people and injuring nearly 600. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 Sulawesi quake and tsunami that killed about 4,340 people.
In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh.