Indonesia is struck by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake sparking brief tsunami warning

A massive 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s densely populated Sulawesi region on Friday sparking fears of a possible tsunami.

The meteorology and geophysics agency issued an early tsunami warning for people in Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi provinces, asking people to evacuate to higher ground.

But the warning was later repealed, according to Indonesia’s disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

Nugroho had previously told people in shore areas to ‘move away from the coastline’ in a televised interview as panic spread over the quake.

A smaller 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck on Friday morning followed by a much larger 7.5 tremor which prompted the tsunami warning

Sulawesi is the fourth largest Indonesian island and is home to around 18million people – all of whom have been put on alert following the quake on Friday. 

The U.S. Geological Survey put the magnitude of the second quake at a strong 7.5, after first saying it was 7.7.

An earlier 6.1 magnitude quake destroyed some houses, killing one person and injuring at least 10, authorities said.

‘The quake was felt very strongly, we expects more damage and more victims,’ Nugroho said.

A series of earthquakes in July and August killed nearly 500 people on the holiday island of Lombok, hundreds of kilometres southwest of Sulawesi.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ and is regularly hit by earthquakes.

In 2004, a big earthquake off the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.

Several houses were said to have collapsed in the earlier quake, although it is not yet known what damage has been caused by the 7.7 magnitude tremor

Sulawesi, where the quake hit, is Indonesia’s fourth-largest island and one of the most densely populated