The Indonesian earthquake has shaken residents, but only one injury and minor damage has been reported by Reuters

By Gayatri Suroyo and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – A strong 7.4 magnitude earthquake shook eastern Indonesia on Tuesday, triggering a tsunami warning and sending neighbors fleeing their homes, but causing only minor damage and injuring one person, authorities said.

The tsunami warning was lifted two hours after the earthquake occurred at 0320 GMT in the Flores Sea, 112 km (70 miles) northwest of the town of Larantuka, east of Flores Island.

“They all took to the streets,” Agustinus Florianus, a resident of Maumere in Flores, told Reuters. An earthquake of similar magnitude in 1992 damaged Maumere.

Tsunami warnings were issued for Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara and areas of Southeast and South Sulawesi.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 7.3. It hit a shallow depth of 12 km.

The Indonesian earthquake has caused a tsunami warning

To view the chart, click here: https://graphics.reuters.com/INDONESIA-QUAKE/zdvxoxjabpx/chart.png

“It felt like a wave, up and down,” Zacharias Gentana Keranz, a resident of Larantuka, told Reuters.

A disaster relief agency says one person has been injured in Manggarai, Flores, and damaged a school building and several homes on Selayar Island in South Sulawesi.

The quake, which was the result of an active fault in the Flores Sea, left at least 15 aftershocks with a maximum magnitude of 5.6, the meteorological agency said.

But the quake did not cause a significant rise in sea level.

Indonesia’s quake has caused a number of deadly tsunamis, most notably in 2004, when the North Sumatra island caused a 9.1-magnitude tsunami and killed more than 230,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries.

The U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center previously warned that based on pre-earthquake parameters, dangerous tsunami waves were possible off the coast within 1,000 km (621.37 miles) of the epicenter of the quake.

Indonesia is located on the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, an area of ​​high seismic activity, located on multiple tectonic plates.