DMC issues then withdraws tsunami warning

• Strong Indonesian earthquake hits coast off Indonesia but no major damage

Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management Centre (DMC) yesterday issued and withdrew a tsunami warning alert following an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. 

The DMC assured the public there was no tsunami threat and called for people who had vacated their homes in the coastal areas to return. 

“The coastal areas of Sri Lanka are declared safe and those evacuated to safe areas may now return to their usual places. The public is further informed that this withdrawal is announced in consultation with relevant national and international agencies,” the department said in a statement on Sunday morning.

A strong earthquake struck Sunday off the coast of southern Sumatra in Indonesia, causing panicked residents to run from their homes but no major damage, the Associated Press reported. 

The US Geological Survey said the quake Sunday morning had a magnitude of 6.4 and occurred at a depth of 35 kilometres (21 miles).

It was centred 74 kilometres (46 miles) west of the coastal city of Bengkulu and also felt in Singapore, about 590 kilometres (370 miles) from the epicentre. It did not generate a tsunami.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the quake was felt for about 10 seconds in coastal cities and was strong enough to shake belongings from shelves and topple furniture.

Residents ran from their homes and there were power outages in some areas but no reports of casualties or structural damage to buildings, Nugroho said.

“The intensity of the earthquake felt mild to moderate,” he said.

Singapore broadcaster Channel NewsAsia said it received calls from residents in the city state who felt tremors.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to the seismic upheaval and tsunamis due to its location on major geological faults known as the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’.

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 in northern Sumatra.