Earthoquake Hits S Sulawesi City of Makassar

Makassar, S Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale rocked Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi province, for a few seconds on Sunday at 11:59 PM local time.

The Makassar-based meteorology and geophysics agency reported that the earthquake's epicenter was located 6.11 degrees southern latitude and 117.55 degrees eastern longitude at a depth of 19 kilometers.

Indonesia is prone to seismic upheavals due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Last June, a strong earthquake, for instance, had damaged several hundred wooden houses along the coastline of Tiyoka Bay in Yapen Islands district, Papua province.

Some houses in Sarawandori village, Kosiwo sub-district, were destroyed and washed away by Saerari sea currents.

The Sarawandori villagers, whose wooden houses were damaged and destroyed, had to take refuge in emergency tents they set up on a hilly area to avoid a tsunami.

Last October, a powerful earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale also jolted Mentawai islands in West Sumatra.

The epicenter of the 5.2-magnitude earthquake was 78 km west of Pagai Selatan subdistrict, Mentawai district, at a depth of 10 km.

The Mentawai earthquake triggered a deadly tsunami.

The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) stated that the natural disaster had affected a large number of villages and caused 408 deaths, 303 people to go missing and 270 others to sustain severe injuries.

The number of affected people was initially estimated at 33,817. However, many islands had become inaccessible and the number of potentially affected people could be over 65,000.

In 2009, Padang city in West Sumatra province, was hit by a powerful earthquake, killing at least 1,100 people.

The earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale which devastated West Sumatra on September 30, 2009, also caused serious damage to 65,380 houses and light damage to 78,604 others.(R013/S012)