Bali - An earthquake rattled Indonesia‘s resort island of Bali on Friday, where thousands of people were gathering for a U.N. climate change conference. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The 5.4-magnitude tremor was centered 245 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of Bali, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. It struck about 10 kilometers (6 miles) beneath the ocean floor.
The quake could be felt in nearby Bali, where more than 10,000 people were attending a two-week conference about rising global temperatures, which scientists say could lead to severe droughts and flooding, melting ice caps and rising seas, and the extinction of animals.
The walls and floors of massive tents set up in a sprawling complex of five-star hotels shook for around 10 seconds, but officials said they did not have any reports of injuries or damage. The quake was not strong enough to trigger a tsunami warning.
Indonesia, the world‘s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheavals due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Sumatra island, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, including 160,000 people in Indonesia‘s westernmost province of Aceh.
Source: malaysia.news.yahoo.com (8 Desember 2007)