Powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocks Indonesian island, tsunami warning issued

JAKARTA: A powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked central Sulawesi in Indonesia on Friday. Following the earthquake, the authorities have issued a tsunami warning. The US Geological Survey said the quake was centered at a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers) about 35 miles (56 kilometers) northeast of the town of Donggala.

Earlier on Friday, the same area was hit by a 6.1 magnitude earthquake in which one person was killed and 10 had been injured. Dozens of houses had also been damaged in the earthquake.

"People in shore areas, please move away from the coastline. The quake was felt very strongly, we expect more damage and more victims," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said in a TV interview.

Nearly 500 people had been killed in a series of earthquakes in July and August on the holiday island of Lombok, hundreds of kilometres southwest of Sulawesi.