Earthquake jolts central Sulawesi in Indonesia, 1 dead

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – A magnitude 6.1 earthquake jolted the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday, killing one person and damaging dozens of houses.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was centered at a depth of 11 miles (18 kilometers) about 19 miles (30 kilometers) north of the central Sulawesi town of Donggala.

With the situation still being assessed, Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency said one person died, 10 were injured and dozens of houses damaged. “The victim was hit by a collapsed building,” the agency said in a statement.

Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency said the quake didn’t have the potential to cause a tsunami.

Donggala resident Mohammad Fikri said by telephone that he ran from his house but there wasn’t great panic in his neighborhood.

“All the things in my house were swaying and the quake left a small crack on my wall,” he told The Associated Press.

“But this was not the first time. Last week we felt an earthquake that had a stronger tremor so this time we didn’t panic, just avoided the buildings and now everything has returned to normal,” Fikri said.

The disaster agency said the tremor was felt for about 10 seconds in Donggala.

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.