Strong earthquake shakes Indonesia’s Bali island

By Ainur Rohmah

TUBAN, Indonesia (AA) - A strong earthquake shook the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Wednesday, causing people to panic and rush out of buildings.

"The earthquake did not cause a tsunami," National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.

"The shock of the quake is felt by most people in Bali province," he added.

The agency recorded the temblor as having a magnitude of 6.4 and striking at a depth of 117 kilometers (73 miles) around 23 km (14 miles) east of provincial capital Denpasar.

The United States Geological Survey, however, logged a magnitude of 5.5.

Indonesia lies within the Pacific’s "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide and cause frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

On Dec. 7, a magnitude 6.5 temblor rocked the north of Sumatra island, leaving 104 people dead, more than 1,200 injured and tens of thousands displaced in Aceh province.

On Dec. 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck the eastern coast of Sumatra, causing a tsunami that killed around 230,000 people as it tore along the coasts of Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.