Indonesia issues tsunami warning following 7.7 magnitude earthquake

JAKARTA (Web Desk) - Indonesia has issued a local tsunami warning after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck near the center of the archipelago nation on Saturday morning, local time. Three aftershocks – of magnitudes 5.9, 5.6 and 6.1 – followed, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The national geophysics agency urged residents to stay away from beaches and riverbanks, according to the Associated Press. The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said the shallow undersea earthquake was near Flores Island and called on residents along impacted coastlines to move to higher ground, the AP reported. Authorities in Australia, across the Timor Sea, have said there is no tsunami threat to the country as of now. Initial estimates from the USGS based on the earthquake shaking indicate casualties and damage are possible, though the Indonesian government has not yet commented on this. The USGS pager suggests about 500,000 people were exposed to very strong or severe shaking, which is capable of slight to moderate damage in well-built structures and great damage in poorly built structures. Indonesia has seen several devastating earthquakes in the past. The country sits on the Ring of Fire, a band around the Pacific Ocean that sets off frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity. The ring is one of the most seismically active areas in the world, spanning from Japan and Indonesia on one side of the Pacific to California and South America on the other. The catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was sparked when Indonesia’s Sumatra island was hit by a quake with a magnitude of 9.1. The resulting disaster killed more than 220,000 people along the ocean’s coasts, more than half of them in Indonesia. More recently, hundreds were killed when a 6.9 earthquake hit the island of Lombok in August of 2018. Later that month a trio of intense earthquakes shook several islands in the South Pacific and Indonesia. And in September of that year, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit the Island of Sulawesi, killing hundreds more. In November of 2022, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit the Cianjur region in West Java, also killing hundreds.