At least Two people lost their lives and 20 were injured as a result of the shaking this Friday of an earthquake of magnitude 6.2 on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, one of the most populated in the archipelago, official sources report. The earthquake, which was also felt in neighboring Singapore, forced the temporary evacuation of schools and buildings, according to videos posted by witnesses on social networks.
The National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB) indicated that, according to preliminary data, two people died in the regency of West Pasaman, on the west coast of Sumatra.
The United States Geological Survey, which records global seismic activity, located the hypocenter of the earthquake at a depth of 12 kilometers in the central region of the island and 66.8 kilometers northwest of the town of Bukittinggi, which has around 120,000 population. The Indonesian authorities, for their part, warned of possible strong aftershockslike those already registered of magnitude 4.8 and 4.7, but ruled out the possibility of a tsunami.
Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity in which some 7,000 earthquakes are recorded every year, most moderate. In 2004, a strong earthquake in the north of the Indonesian island Sumatra generated a tsunami that caused more than 226,000 deaths in a dozen nations bathed by the Indian Ocean.