Jakarta: At least three people have died and 24 been injured after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, the country’s disaster mitigation agency said on Friday.
The country’s search and rescue agency confirmed that at least one hotel had collapsed.
The epicentre of the quake was six kilometres northeast of the city of Majene, at a depth of 10 kilometres.
Several thousand panicked residents fled their homes to seek safety after the quake, which did not trigger a tsunami warning but was felt strongly for about seven seconds, the statement said.
The disaster mitigation agency said a hotel and the office of the West Sulwesi governor were severely damaged, and electricity supplies were also down.
Hours earlier, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck in the same district on Thursday damaging several houses Straddling the so-called Pacific ‘ring of fire’, Indonesia, a nation of high tectonic activity, is regularly hit by earthquakes.
In 2018, a devastating 6.2 magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami struck the city of Palu, in Sulawesi, killing thousands of people.
