Indonesia quake kills one, spreads panic

JAKARTA - A large earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale shook Indonesia's eastern Sulawesi island early on Monday, killing one person, damaging buildings and spreading panic among residents, officials said.

The tremor came nearly a month after a huge earthquake off Aceh province in western Sumatra island that sent a tsunami hurtling across the Indian Ocean, killing more than 234,000 people, mostly in Indonesia.

A large quake was also felt in the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh, on Monday morning, rattling buildings and sending residents running into the streets.

One person died and another was badly injured in the Central Sulawesi quake, which hit at 3.10am local time (9.10am Monday NZT), police said.

"We have reports of one dead and one seriously injured from the West Donggala district. In Palu, several shops have been damaged," police commissioner Victor Batara told Reuters from the Central Sulawesi's provincial capital of Palu, 1,500km northeast of Jakarta.

Police went around the streets calming residents, many of whom feared a tsunami could be on its way. The coastal city of Palu is about 16km from the quake's epicentre.

At Palu's main hospital, patients fled the building in panic, some carrying intravenous drips.

"People got scared. They ran out ... Medical equipment, including intravenous drips, were taken," Dr Riri Lamajido, director of the Palu's Undatta public hospital, told Reuters.

Residents said the earthquake had been followed by several aftershocks. Media reported the airport in Palu had been closed due to damage.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands and the world's fourth most populous nation, lies along the "Pacific Ring of Fire", where plate boundaries intersect and volcanoes regularly erupt.

The December 26 earthquake off Aceh was the world's strongest in decades. The images of that destruction are fresh in the minds of Indonesians.

"Residents were affected by the television images from Aceh. They thought tsunami waves were coming their way," Maulidin Labalo, Palu city secretary, told Jakarta-based Elshinta radio.

"We told them the quake was under land so the possibility of a tsunami is small."

- REUTERS