Earthquake rocks western Indonesia
Witnesses say hundreds of houses levelled by underwater tremor off Sumatra coast.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued regional tsunami warning following the earthquake, but the warning was cancelled soon afterwards.
The Indonesian earthquake comes just hours after a series of tsunamis caused death and devastation on the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa.
Padang, the capital of Indonesia’s West Sumatra province, sits on one of the world’s most active fault lines along the “Ring of Fire”, where the Indo-Australia plate grinds against the Eurasia plate, creating regular tremors and sometimes earthquakes.
In 2004, a 9.15 magnitude earthquake, with its epicentre roughly 600km northwest of Padang, caused a tsunami that killed 232,000 people in Indonesia’s Aceh province, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, and other countries across the Indian Ocean.