![\"debris.\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/8acf57290b27deb51929467e8bc26c90.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA powerful magnitude-7.4 earthquake has struck in the Molucca Sea region north-east of Indonesia, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).<\/p>\n
The USGS reported aftershocks as high as magnitude 5, and Indonesia’s meteorology agency reported tsunami waves in West Halmahera at 0.3m high and Bitung at 0.2m \u200chigh.<\/p>\n
The quake, which hit early today, had a depth of 35 kilometres and its epicentre was 127km west-north-west of Ternate, Indonesia, the USGS said.<\/p>\n
The US tsunami warning system said tsunami waves were possible in neighbouring countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Head of Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), Abdul Muhari, told ABC News that teams in Manado and Bitung, North Sulawesi, as well as Ternate, North Maluku, were still inspecting a number of buildings to assess the extent of the damage and to determine whether there had been any further fatalities.<\/p>\n
“We are still collecting data to confirm the number of victims and the damage in each location,” Mr Muhari told ABC News.<\/p>\n
“There have indeed been earlier reports of casualties from the Regional Disaster Management Agency, but we will provide updated details later regarding the exact figures. . . our teams are still working in the field.”<\/p>\n
“One victim who died after being hit by debris has been taken to the hospital,” said Nuriadin Gumeleng, spokesperson for the North Sulawesi National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas).<\/p>\n
Basarnas also reported one person with injuries who is currently receiving treatment.<\/p>\n
“The other person broke his leg after jumping from a shop,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Basarnas is still seeking information regarding the possibility of further casualties in the earthquake.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A damaged building in Manado after the quake. (Reuters: Tonny Rarung)<\/p>\n
Indonesian broadcaster Metro TV reported one person had died from falling rubble in the Manado area, and video showed damaged buildings.<\/p>\n
A Manado resident told the Reuters news agency that people ran out of their houses in \u200cpanic. There was no visible damage in her neighbourhood, but items fell off shelves, and power had been cut.<\/p>\n
Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a \u200chighly seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet \u200cand create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regional governments in some cities, such as on Ternate and Tidore, the historic Spice Islands, were urged to prepare citizens for evacuation.<\/p>\n
Hazardous tsunamis were possible along the coasts of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia within 1,000km of the epicentre, US tsunami warning authorities said.<\/p>\n
![\"people](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/9efd6f098e5cf07d4b8828dd2cbc29ec.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A hospital building was evacuated in Manado. (Reuters: Randy Karundeng)<\/p>\n
The epicentre of the quake was roughly 580km south of the Philippine coast and 1,000km from Malaysia’s Sabah.<\/p>\n
The Philippines’ seismology agency, PHIVOLCS, said \u200cthere was “no destructive tsunami threat” \u200cto the country based on the latest data.<\/p>\n
Malaysia’s meteorological department said in a Facebook post that there was \u200cno tsunami threat to Malaysia at the moment and that it was monitoring developments.<\/p>\n
Waves of heights ranging from 0.3m to 1m above the tide level could hit some coastal areas of Indonesia, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.<\/p>\n
It also warned of the risk of waves less than 0.3m over tide levels for the coasts of Guam, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Japan may see waves of up to 0.2m, but no damage is expected, the \u200cJapan Meteorological Agency \u200csaid, as it warned a tsunami could occur in the Pacific.\u00a0<\/p>\n
AP\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A powerful magnitude-7.4 earthquake has struck in the Molucca Sea region north-east of Indonesia, according to the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[11152,1397,2183,178153,178154,178157,122472,90,178156,56,54,55,178155],"class_list":{"0":"post-508281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-earthquake","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-indonesia","11":"tag-magnitude-7-4-earthquake","12":"tag-molucca-sea-region","13":"tag-possible-tsunami","14":"tag-quake","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-ternate","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-us-geological-survey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}