Buildings shaken as magnitude 6.4 earthquake strikes off East Timor

(Reuters) – An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck off the coast of East Timor on Friday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, prompting some people in the capital Dili to flee buildings, though a tsunami was ruled out.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, but witnesses said the quake was felt strongly. A video shared on social media showed people exiting a shopping mall in Dili by stairs.

“It’s quite big,” Francez Suni, director of information of East Timor’s GMN TV told Reuters in text message.

“Our staff ran out of the building because it was shaking.”

The Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said the quake did not trigger a tsunami threat warning.

The earthquake was felt by residents in the Australian city of Darwin, more than 700 km (435 miles) away, according to Australian media reports and residents’ posts on social media.

East Timor and neighbouring Indonesia straddle the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

EMSC said the quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles) and struck about 29 km east-southeast of Lospalos. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake magnitude was 6.1 and 50 km deep.

(Reporting by Angie Teo in Jakarta, Ed Davies in Sydney and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Martin Petty)