There were no immediate reports of injuries Friday morning in the fifth strong earthquake to hit Indonesia in three days.

The 6.4-magnitude earthquake was centered about 75 miles west-southwest of Sumatra's Bengkulu province and 405 miles west-northwest of Jakarta, CNN reported. Seven hours earlier, a 6.2 quake struck 65 miles west-northwest of Bengkulu province.

An 8.4 magnitude quake in the same region Wednesday and two major aftershocks Thursday, killed 13 people and lefts thousands homeless.

"What we have here is a subduction zone, where one of the Earth's plates is moving down beneath the other," David Applegate, senior adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey, told CNN. "In this case, the Indian Ocean and the Australian Plate are moving beneath the Eurasian Plate."

Since the devastating tsunami in December 2004, Indonesia has had 15 earthquakes with magnitudes of 6.3 or higher. // Copyright 2007 by United Press International


Publication date: 14 September 2007   

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