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Tsunami alert issued after massive magnitude 7.6 earthquake hits Indonesia

The US monitoring centre has issued an alert warning of possible "hazardous tsunami waves" within 1,000km of the quake's epicentre

[The earthquake has triggered a tsunami alert]

The earthquake has triggered a tsunami alert

A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake has hit Indonesia, prompting a tsunami warning. The quake struck in the Northern Molucca Sea on Thursday (April 2), according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), with a US monitoring centre issuing an alert cautioning of potential " hazardous tsunami waves" within 1,000km of the quake's epicentre. The earthquake, which has since been revised down to a magnitude of 7.4, hit at 6.48am local time at a depth of 35km. Its epicentre was located 127 kilometres (79 miles) west-northwest of Ternate, in the archipelago's North Maluku province, which has a population of over 205,000, according to USGS.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said that hazardous tsunami waves were possible "within 1,000km of the epicentre" along the coasts of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. USGS also warned of tsunami waves reaching 0.3 metres to one metre (3.2ft) above the tide level were possible for some of the Indonesian coastline, reports the Mirror.

In further advice, the US tsunami warning system forecast waves of less than 30 centimetres above tide level for the coasts of Guam, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Japan's meteorological agency added that "slight sea level changes" may occur along the nation's coast, but that no tsunami damage was expected. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said there was no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, nor its islands or territories. Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of islands home to more than 280 million people, lies on major seismic fault lines and is regularly struck by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometre (25,000-mile) horseshoe-shaped band around the Pacific Ocean. The Ring of Fire hosts 75% of the world's volcanoes and 90% of its earthquakes.

[Two Thai rescuers carry a body recovered from the destroyed Khao Lak Laguna Resort Hotel, seen in the background, north of the devastated Thai tourist resort island of Phuket, 29 December 2004, following the massive tsunami that slammed into the Thai coastline 26 December.]

Two Thai rescuers carry a body recovered from the destroyed Khao Lak Laguna Resort Hotel, seen in the background, north of the devastated Thai tourist resort island of Phuket, 29 December 2004, following the massive tsunami that slammed into the Thai coastline 26 December.(Image: AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

In 2022, a shallow 5.6-magnitude tremor killed more than 600 people in West Java's Cianjur city, the most fatal one in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi claimed more than 4,300 lives. In 2004, an extremely powerful earthquake struck in the Indian Ocean, measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale. It set off what is now known as the Boxing Day Tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.

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