Moderate earthquake jolts Indonesia's West Java, no damage

Dec 24, 2006, 3:34 GMT

Jakarta - A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck parts of West Java and the Indonesian capita Jakarta Sunday morning, but there were no reports of damage or injuries, a meteorological agency said.

The moderate tremblor struck about 5:59 am (2359 GMT Saturday) near Jakarta and the West Java province of Banten.

The epicentre was in the Straits of Sunda, about 13 kilometres from Ujungkulon, an Indonesian national park on the southwestern tip of Java, or about 200 kilometres southwest of Jakarta, according to Jakarta's national Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

The quake struck at a depth of 63 kilometres beneath the seabed, said Novita, an official at the agency, adding that there were no immediate reports of injury of structural damage from the quake.

Sunday's earthquake was the latest to strike Indonesia in recent months. On December 18, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck parts of West and North Sumatra provinces, killing at least four people, damaging hundreds of homes and triggering landslides.

On December 26, 2004, a 9-magnitude quake generated a tsunami that left some 177,000 people dead or missing in Aceh province on the northern end of Sumatra.

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago nation, located in the Pacific volcanic belt known as the Ring of Fire, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common.