JAKARTA (Reuters) – A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s North Sumatra province on Saturday, killing one person, the country’s meteorological and geophysical agency BMKG said.
BMKG director Dwikorita Karnawati told reporters that nine people were injured in the earthquake.
Five homes were damaged and 53 aftershocks were recorded after the quake was first felt at 2:28 a.m. (1928 GMT), she said, and there was no tsunami threat. added that they were warned of possible landslides in the hilly area.
Indonesia is frequently hit by earthquakes as it straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a seismically active zone where various plates of the Earth’s crust meet.
Faults along Sumatra are particularly active and dangerous. In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami at the northern tip of Sumatra killed 226,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries.
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