Buy a
car  Event
tickets   Job
search  Real
estate   Shopping

Search

How do I find
it?

Subscribe to
paper

Home

News

Travel

Money

Sports

Life

Tech

Weather

News
»

World

Life in
Iraq

Iraq
Casualties

E-mail features

E-mail
newsletters
Sign up to receive
our free Daily Briefing e-newsletter and get the top news of the day
in your inbox.

E-mail

Select one:
HTML Text

Breaking news E-mail alerts

Get breaking news in your inbox
as it happens

JAKARTA EARTHQUAKE

Powerful earthquake rocks Indonesian
capital

Updated

| Comment  | Recommend

E-mail
| Save
| Print
|

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A powerful earthquake
under the Java Sea shook Indonesia's capital early Thursday, violently
shaking tall buildings and sending panicked residents into the
streets.

There were no immediate reports of damage, and
geophysicists said there was little risk of a tsunami.

The quake, which struck at 12:04 a.m. (1:04 p.m. ET
Wednesday) had a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 and was centered about 65
miles east of Jakarta at a depth in the Earth of 180 miles, the U.S.
Geological Survey said.

Residents said tall buildings and single story homes
shook violently in the city of 9 million people, and water sloshed from
swimming pools.

Many people were awakened by the quake and some
people screamed "Allah akbar!" or "God is great!" as they ran outside.

El-Shinta radio reported that the quake could be felt
from Sumatra island in the west to Bali to the east, but that there were
no immediate reports of damage.

The quake also was felt in parts of Malaysia, said
Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the USGS National Earthquake Information
Center in Golden, Colo.

None of the instruments closest to the earthquake
indicated that a tsunami was triggered, said Robert Cessaro, a
geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. He added
that there were no instruments "very close" to the quake's epicenter.

"Because this earthquake was so far below the ocean
bottom, it didn't trigger a tsunami or cause a lot of damage," said John
Bellini, another USGS geophysicist.

The Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake that triggered the
tsunami off the coast of Sumatra and killed more than 131,000 in
Indonesia's Ache province was only 18 miles deep, according to the
USGS.

"The earthquake center in 2004 was close enough that
it actually ruptured the surface of the sea floor, which caused a
tsunami," Bellini said. "This one was felt by people on the ground, and it
shook buildings, but it was too deep to cause the ocean bottom to
move."

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.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.

Posted

Updated

E-mail
| Save
| Print
|

To report corrections and
clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent
Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send
comments to [email-masked]. Include
name, phone number, city and state for
verification.

Conversation guidelines:
USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related
to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep
the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.

Newspaper
Home Delivery - Subscribe Today

Home
• News • Travel
• Money • Sports • Life • Tech • Weather

About USATODAY.com: Site
Map | FAQ
| Contact
Us | Jobs
with Us | Terms of
Service
Privacy
Policy/Your California Privacy Right | Media
Kit | Press
Room | Reprints
and Permissions

News
Your Way:   Mobile News
|   Email News
|   Add
USATODAY.com RSS feeds

Partners:
USA WEEKEND
| Sports
Weekly | Education
| Space.com

Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a
division of Gannett Co.
Inc.