A powerful earthquake has hit waters off Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, leaving residents and tourists fleeing hotels and homes in panic.
Some roofs collapsed and callers told local radio and television stations they saw cracks in the walls of buildings.
CNN reports that 43 people have been taken to hospital, five with serious injuries.
The US Geological Survey put the preliminary magnitude of the quake at 6.0 and said it was centred 60 miles south west of the island. Indonesia’s geological agency put the quake’s magnitude at 6.8.
It struck 36 miles beneath the ocean floor but no tsunami alert was issued. A giant quake off the country on Boxing Day in 2004 triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, half of them in Indonesia’s westernmost province of Aceh.
Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.