Strong earthquakes in Indian and Pacific Oceans

January 23,2009

Yesterday an earthquake of magnitude 6.2 occurred in Indonesia's, and two quakes of similar strengths took place in the Pacific Ocean. As of 9 am today, no damage has been reported. These are the strongest earthquakes since Monday.

The Indonesian earthquake was in the sparse island group of, north of Australia, at 2016 Thursday (5.46 am Friday, Darwin time). The Maluku Islands are in the earthquake-prone Banda Sea between New Guinea and Sulawesi. The Indonesian quake was felt in, northern Australia, 600 km (400 miles) south of the epicentre.

The Pacific quakes took place earlier in the day. The first struck at 1340 UTC in Papua New Guinea, close to the populous island of, with a magnitude of 6.0. The other was at 1708 UTC, 110 km (70 miles) from the remote, New Caledonia, with a magnitude 6.3.

As recently as January 5, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake on the island of (eastern Indonesia) killed one person and caused many serious injuries. Indonesia began to operate a tsunami early warning system in November, and no warnings were issued following yesterday's earthquakes.

Related news

 * "Two strong earthquakes in the South Pacific". Wikinews, January 21, 2009