DENPASAR, Indonesia An earthquake shook Bali and other Indonesian islands Tuesday, causing panic and damaging homes and other buildings, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
DENPASAR, Indonesia— An earthquake shook Bali and other Indonesian islands Tuesday, causing panic and damaging homes and other buildings, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The magnitude 5.7 quake was centered at sea 82 kilometers (51 miles) to the southwest of Denpasar on Bali at a depth of 91 kilometers (57 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said. Indonesia’s geophysics agency said the quake didn’t have the potential to cause a tsunami.
The national disaster agency posted photos on its Twitter account showing a damaged house and mosque in Banyuwangi in East Java and a damaged Hindu temple in Bali. Video showed damage to an ornate entranceway in Nusa Dua, an area home to high-end resorts in Bali.
The main hospital in Denpasar evacuated patients, some attached to intravenous drips, to the hospital grounds, television footage showed. Numerous schools and hotels were also evacuated.
“While having breakfast suddenly everything in the room swayed very strongly,” said George Stephen, an Australian holidaying in Bali’s Kuta area.
He said guests fled the hotel in panic but returned after about 15 minutes.
A quake on Sunday in North Maluku province killed two people and damaged dozens of homes.
Indonesia, home to more than 260 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location along the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” A powerful Indian Ocean quake and tsunami in 2004 killed a total of 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.
