(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-03 14:01

JAKARTA -- An earthquake with magnitude of 6.3 rattled west Sumatra province of Indonesia on Monday morning. No casualty or damages reported, meteorology agency and local military command said here.

In the closest area with the epicenter of the quake, Painan town of West Sumatra province, there were no building damages or collapsed, said Peter Manik, a military officer in charge at the town.

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"Reports from all districts say that there are no damages or casualty," he told Xinhua on phone from the town.

The officer said that the quake only cause light shakes and did not cause panic.

"We felt short shakes, but the shakes did not make us scared," he said.

The quake struck at 09:37 Jakarta time (0237GMT) with epicenter at 157 kilometers southwest Painan town of West Sumatra province and at 34 kilometers under seabed, an official of the agency Ali Imron told Xinhua.

The intensity of the quake was felt at 4 to 5 MMI (modified metrically intensity) at the town and 2 to 3 at Pariaman town and 2 MMI at Bukittinggi of the province, he said.

In September 2007, 23 people were killed and thousands of buildings were destructed in the province and nearby Bengkulu province after a 7.9 Richter scale quake, that was potential for tsunami, rocked Bengkulu province in Sumatra Island.

In 2004, over 170,000 people were killed in Aceh province in northern tip of Sumatra Island after a tsunami triggered by a powerful quake devastated coastal areas of the province and other countries in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia is laid at a vulnerable zone so called "the Pacific Ring of Fire" where two continental plates, stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia, meet that cause frequent volcanic movements.