Quake shakes Indonesia

A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Indonesian province of North Sulawesi today, causing panic among residents in several cities but no injuries or damage were reported, government seismologists said.

The quake, centred about 31 miles under the sea and 66 miles east of Manado, struck at 4:22pm local time, a spokesman for the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

The quake lasted for about three minutes, the agency said, and could be felt in Manado and as far away as Ternate, about 124 miles away in the Maluku islands, he said.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

The magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on December 26 killed more than 131,000 people and left a half-million homeless.

Three months later, another strong tremor left more than 900 dead on the Indonesian island of Nias and some smaller, surrounding islands.