Powerful Indonesia quake sends islanders fleeing

PADANG, Indonesia — A magnitude-7.3 earthquake rattled residents on islands west of Indonesia's Sumatra on Tuesday, forcing them to flee to higher ground before an hourslong tsunami warning was lifted, but causing no major damage or casualties.

The earthquake took place at sea at about 3 am, with the epicenter at 177 kilometers northwest of Mentawai Islands district and a depth of 84 kilometers under the seabed, said Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency.

Footage released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency showed streams of people in a village on Mentawai Islands fleeing to the highlands by foot and motorcycles under the rain in darkness, while some patients at the village's hospital were evacuated to its yard as cracks showed in the facility's floor.

"Many residents in several villages on Mentawai Islands chose to stay on higher ground although the tsunami alert was ended due to the fear of aftershocks," agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said.

Officials said the quake was also felt in the coastal city of Padang in western Sumatra, which is around 200 kilometers from the epicenter.

Residents in Padang said they had panicked as tsunami warning sirens wailed, forcing evacuation to higher ground in the middle of the night.

After an initial tsunami alert, Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency lifted it just before dawn, about two hours after the quake.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 270 million people, experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide.

In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia's Aceh Province.

Padang and West Sumatra Province were struck by a magnitude-7.6 earthquake in 2009 that killed more than 1,100 people. Last November, a magnitude-5.6 quake killed at least 340 people and damaged more than 62,600 homes in parts of West Java.

Agencies Via Xinhua