6.3 magnitude quake hits off Indonesian island Sumatra

Indonesia's disaster agency is assessing the impact of a strong earthquake that hit off the southern coast of Sumatra island late on Tuesday, it said in a statement, noting there had been no reports of damage or casualties by near midnight.

The 6.3 magnitude quake struck at 21:31 local time (1431 GMT), the country's meteorology and geophysics agency (BMKG) said, with its epicentre 80 km (50 miles) south of the town of Manna in Bengkulu province, at a depth of 52 km.

Manna is about 600 km (375 miles) northwest of the capital Jakarta.

The tremor was felt for 2 to 6 seconds by residents along the southern coastline of Sumatra, prompting some to run out of their homes, disaster agency BNPB said in a statement.

"It was quite strong," a Bengkulu agency official, Septi, said.

Indonesia straddles the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire", a seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth's crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

In February, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake killed more than 10 people when it struck inland near the western coast of Sumatra.
The Daily Star