Jakarta: A strong earthquake jolted eastern Indonesia, killing one woman, damaging dozens of buildings and sending panicked residents fleeing into the streets, officials said on Saturday.
The 6.3-magnitude quake struck at 0710 IST and was centered 25 kilometers north of Raba, a town on Sumbawa island, the US Geological Survey on its Website.
It rattled several towns and citieson the island and could also be felt in nearby East Nusatenggaa province, said a municipal official on the island, Hazairin. Lie any Indonesians he goes by only one name.
The body of a 62-year-old woman, Siti Syihh wa found in her home early on Saturday morning, he said. She apparenly died while trying to flee the swaying building, he said, but was trapped beneath a fallen cabinet.
Dozens of schools, houses and other buildings were destroyed in the tremor, he said.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
A magnitude-9 earthquake off Sumatra island triggered the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 131,000 people in Aceh alone and left a half-million others homeless.
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