An earthquake of magnitude 6.9 has struck Indonesia’s Banda Sea; there is no tsunami warning

The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) reported that on Wednesday, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 occurred in the Indonesian Banda Sea area.

According to EMSC, the earthquake occurred 370 km (229.9 mi) southeast of Ambon, Indonesia, and was assessed to be 146 km deep. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PWTC) said that there was no risk of a tsunami due to the earthquake.

It was first recorded by EMSC at a magnitude of 6.8. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake occurred at 11:53 a.m. local time and was situated far from the coast. The geophysics agency of Indonesia has not issued a tsunami alert. The Indonesian Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency, or BMKG, reports that the earthquake was felt significantly near the town of Saumlaki in the archipelago’s Tanimbar Islands.

“There was a lot of shaking. However, nobody was in a panic here. We are used to earthquakes, Lambert Tatang, a native of Saumlaki, told AFP. “Life is just normal now, especially after we learned that there was no tsunami threat,” the 41-year-old said.

Because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of very active seismic activity that spans the Pacific basin from Japan to Southeast Asia, Indonesia is subject to regular earthquakes.

602 people were killed after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck the populated West Java region on the nation’s main island of Java in November of last year. A 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in 2004 caused a tsunami that killed 220,000 people in the area, around 170,000 of them were in Indonesia.