AFTERSHOCKS
BMKG head Teuku Faisal Fathani told journalists in the capital Jakarta there were 11 aftershocks, the biggest with a magnitude of 5.5.
An AFP journalist in Manado on Sulawesi, about 300km west of Ternate by sea, said the shaking woke him and others in the city of around 450,000 people.
“I immediately woke up and left my house. People (were) immediately scrambling outside. There is a school and the pupils rushed outside,” he said.
The shaking persisted for “quite long” but he did not witness “significant damage”, he added.
The PTWC had initially warned that tsunami waves of up to 1m were possible for parts of Indonesia, with smaller waves possible for the Philippines, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Guam and Palau.
“Government agencies responsible for threatened coastal areas should take action to inform and instruct any coastal populations at risk,” the agency said.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said it expected “slight changes” in the sea level along the Pacific coast from northern Hokkaido to southern Okinawa, but has not issued any warnings.
The earthquake centres of the Philippines and Malaysia have also not issued tsunami alerts.
Indonesia and neighbouring countries experience frequent earthquakes due to their location in the Pacific “Ring of Fire” – an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
In 2004, a magnitude-9.1 quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.
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