According to a 6.2 magnitude earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, at least seven people were killed, hundreds injured and many buildings damaged.
The epicenter was reported six kilometers north-east of the city of Majene at a depth of 10 kilometers.
Initial information from the country’s disaster management agency showed that four people were killed and 637 others injured in Majene, while another three deaths and two dozen were injured in the neighboring area of Mamuju.
Thousands fled their homes to seek safety when the quake struck at about 1 a.m. local time Friday morning, damaging at least 60 homes, the agency said.
The quake felt strong for about seven seconds, but did not trigger a tsunami alert.
On social media, videos showed residents on motorcycles fleeing to higher ground, and a child trapped under the rubble while people tried to remove debris with their bare hands.
A number of buildings were badly damaged, including two hotels, the office of the governor of Western Sulawesi, and a shopping mall, Sudirman Samual, a journalist in Mamuju, north of the epicenter, told Reuters.
At least one route to Mamuju was cut off due to damage to a bridge.
Hours earlier Thursday, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in the same district damaged several homes.
Indonesia’s disaster agency said a series of earthquakes in the past 24 hours had caused at least three landslides, and that the electricity supply had been cut off.
Across the Pacific’s ring of fire ‘, Indonesia, a nation with high tectonic activities, is regularly hit by earthquakes.
In 2018, a devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 and the ensuing tsunami hit the city of Palu in Sulawesi, killing thousands of people.