Tremors felt in Singapore, Malaysia after magnitude-7.3 quake near Indonesia’s Sumatra
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The National Environment Agency in Singapore detected a magnitude-6.7 quake at 4am on Tuesday, around 620km southwest of the island.
PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE SINGAPORE
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SINGAPORE – A 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck west of Sumatra
The quake hit at around 3am local time (4am Singapore time) at a depth of 84km, triggering a tsunami warning for about two hours, said Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency (BMKG).
BMKG data showed that aftershocks were also detected, with one logging a magnitude of 5 on the Richter scale.
The local authorities had initially instructed residents of affected areas, including Padang in Sumatra, to move away from shores, the Indonesian media reported.
In Singapore, the National Environment Agency detected a 6.7-magnitude quake at 4am on Tuesday, around 620km south-west of the Republic.
The meteorological service division assessed that Singapore was unlikely to be affected by a tsunami that may be generated near the quake’s epicentre.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force said on Tuesday that two calls alerting emergency services to the tremors were made in the morning, with no injuries reported.
Social media users in Singapore and Malaysia reported feeling tremors that persisted for more than a minute and seeing “swaying” furniture.
“I was on the balcony (28th floor) and for a moment I thought my chair was wonky... Quite shocked and can’t fall asleep any more,” said one commenter responding to a thread on social media platform Reddit.
In Malaysia, users of Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu – from Selangor state to southern Johor – also reported being awoken by shaking, with many posting to check if other users felt a similar sensation.
One Xiaohongshu user in Johor Bahru said she felt dizzy, before concluding that the sensation was due to an earthquake after seeing the ceiling fan in her room shaking strongly.
Tremors were felt in Peninsular Malaysia, the Malaysian Meteorological Department said on Tuesday.
The department sought information from locals who may have felt aftershocks from the quake, adding that it did not pose a tsunami threat to the country.
In February 2022, there were also reports of tremors being felt in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia after a 6.1-magnitude quake killed seven people in Sumatra, Indonesia.
Dr Aron Meltzner, a principal investigator at the Earth Observatory of Singapore, told The Straits Times it was not uncommon for earthquakes as large as Tuesday morning’s to be felt in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia.
“The most violent vibrations may be felt only near the epicentre, but further away in Singapore, especially on higher floors, we experience the earthquake as a swaying motion, similar to being on a ship at sea,” said Dr Meltzner, who also teaches at Nanyang Technological University’s Asian School of the Environment.
He warned that Indonesia may face even larger earthquakes in the days to weeks ahead.
“Earthquakes cluster in time and space, so we should not be surprised if additional, perhaps even larger earthquakes occur in West Sumatra in the days to weeks ahead.
But it is not possible to predict this with absolute certainty,” Dr Meltzner added.
