Jakarta, Six people were killed and more than a dozen others injured after a 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off Indonesia’sMaluku province on Thursday, a senior disaster official said.
The quake triggered panic, forcing residents to flee home, Eva Tuhumuri, secretary of the national disaster management agency in Ambon, capital of the province, told Xinhua news agency.
The temblor damaged buildings including a university building as well as a bridge, and triggered landslides in the city, the official said.
“The six victims were hit by falling blocks of concrete and parts of buildings damaged by the landslides,” she said.
The quake struck at 6.46 a.m., with the epicenter located 40 km northeast of Ambon and a depth of 10 km, Ali Imron, the official in charge of the meteorology and geophysics agency, told Xinhua via phone.
A 5.6-magnitude aftershock followed at 7.39 a.m.
