It was a 6.2 that jolted the Halmahera region on Friday and spooked a few in Ternate for a bit, seismologists say, without so much as a tsunami warning. You could feel it in some of North Maluku, an area used to this kind of thing, but there’s been no word of harm or destruction from the powers that be.
“I was at a coffee stand by the road, having my cup, and all of a sudden my chair is moving. I had a moment of panic – you can never get over the last few quakes,” said Umar Abbas of Ternate, who is some 114 kilometres out from where it happened.
The numbers and what they mean
USGS has it down as a 6.2, 120 kilometres under the earth. They put the centre of it 58 km to the west of Tobelo in North Maluku at 11:31 (0231 GMT).
Then you have the German Research Centre for Geosciences, which also clocked it at 6.2. GFZ has the time as 10:31 AM (02:31 UTC) and the coordinates at 1.8 North, 127.4 East, or 116 km north of Ternate, with a 127 km (78.91 miles) depth to it.
As for a tsunami, BMKG says don’t worry about it. And both USGS and GFZ are in agreement: nothing to suggest any serious trouble.
What the agencies have put forward:
– 6.2 in Halmahera
– 120 km deep per USGS; 127 for GFZ
– In the vicinity of Tobelo and up from Ternate
– BMKG: no tsunami to be had
– 11:31 local (0231 GMT) on the USGS side; 10:31 (02:31 UTC) for GFZ
A matter of time and place
You’ll see some variance in the figures between the two, but they concur on the power and the fact it was a deep one. USGS has it to the west of Tobelo, GFZ to the north of Ternate. Either way, the rupture was well below the surface.
When a quake is this deep, it doesn’t tend to heave up the water. That’s why BMKG wasn’t seeing a tsunami, even if folks on the street felt it.
Felt, but not a threat
Over in Ternate, you had people put down what they were doing for a while. Once the all-clear came in, life went back to the way it was.
We haven’t heard of any injuries or broken structures from emergency types as of yet. They are still in the process of getting the full story from around Halmahera and the coast of North Maluku.
Some context for Indonesia
This is coming on the heels of a 6.7 in central Sulawesi on June 17 that left one dead and many more hurt, with homes and roads in shambles. It’s only been a couple of weeks, and that part of the country is still picking up the pieces from a far worse disaster eight years ago.
Being on the Ring of Fire means you have to be on your toes. From Japan to the Pacific, this is where the big ones happen, and for those living here, you have to be ready for them.
In the end
It’s not unusual for the initial readouts to be a little off from one another; different tools, different ways of looking at it. Here, they both come to 6.2 and a source in the 120 to 127 km range.
The message from the top is unambiguous: we had some good shaking, no tsunami, and no one to count as a casualty or any major damage. For a country like this, it’s a welcome outcome.
