TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Another earthquake shook North Sulawesi following the one on Tuesday morning at 01:17 January 24. It shook the Philippine Sea region, Talaud Islands, North Sulawesi, with a magnitude of 5.3 and was later updated to 5.5.

According to the temporary data of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 occurred at 09:13. The epicenter was at coordinates 2.84 North Latitude and 127.09 East Longitude, or 136 kilometers southeast of Melonguane, North Sulawesi.

A little over an hour before that, at 08:10, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.2 struck the area, followed by another one with a magnitude of 5.3 at 09:30. All three earthquakes had an epicenter at a depth of 10 kilometers. So far, the BMKG has stated that the earthquake has no potential for a tsunami.

The BMKG's head of the Earthquake and Tsunami Center, Daryono, said that based on the location of the epicenter and the depth of the hypocenter, the earthquakes were triggered by deformation of rocks in the Maluku Sea Plate.

"The results of the analyzing the source mechanism show that the earthquakes have a horizontal-up movement mechanism or oblique-thrust fault," he said.

The modeling results show that this earthquake has no potential for a tsunami. As of 01:45 West Indonesia Time, the BMKG monitoring results showed that there were two aftershocks, the largest with a magnitude of 3.7.

MARIA FRANSISCA LAHUR

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