- JAKARTA (Reuters) - An earthquake
shook Indonesia's remote eastern province of Papua, killing at least one
person, injuring dozens and tearing a two-mile crack in the ground, officials
said on Friday.
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- Thursday night's quake measured 6.4 on the Richter scale,
causing a landslide, flooding and damaging dozens of homes in the Ransiki
district on the bay of Manokwari, 2,000 miles northeast of Jakarta.
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- Some families fled their homes fearing aftershocks and
roads and phone lines were cut off.
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- "We have a report today that one of our officers
in Ransiki was killed in an accident during the quake," a police officer
in the town of Manokwari told Reuters by phone.
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- "We cannot make an immediate check on additional
casualties as roads to the three most-affected regencies have been cut
off."
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- George Leskona, head of the state meteorology office
in Manokwari, said knee-deep water had flooded several homes in the coastal
area.
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- "Several areas south of Manokwari such as Oranbari
and Ransiki are reported to be severely hit. The quake caused a landslide
that cut off a section of road to Oranbari," Leskona told Reuters.
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- He said the quake caused a three-km crack in Ransiki.
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- Officials at the National Earthquake center in Jakarta
said tremors were also felt on the other side of the province in Timika,
near the huge Freeport Mine.
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- "We have recorded some new tremors this morning,
but the intensity was small," one of the officials said.
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- A Manokwari police officer said some residents had temporarily
fled their homes and set up makeshift tents on the streets and sports fields
since last night.
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- The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii did not
issue an alert, saying a Pacific-wide tsunami had not been generated.
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- A 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the north of neighboring
Papua New Guinea last month, knocking coastal homes off their stilts, generating
a small tsunami and killing three people.
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- That quake hit near an area of the poor South Pacific
nation where one of a similar size triggered tsunamis that killed more
than 2,000 people in 1998.
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- Papua New Guinea and Papua province sit on the Pacific
volcanic belt known as the "Ring of Fire" where large magnitude
earthquakes are common.
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