JAKARTA - The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) revealed the cause of the 7.6-magnitude tectonic earthquake that shook the North Sulawesi and North Maluku regions on Thursday, April 2 at around 05.48 WIB which had the potential for a tsunami.
Head of BMKG Teuku Faisal Fathani said the epicenter of the earthquake was at the coordinates of 1.25 degrees north latitude and 126.27 degrees east longitude. The epicenter is located in the sea about 129 kilometers southeast of Bitung with a depth of 33 km.
"By taking into account the epicenter location and the hypocenter depth, the earthquake that occurred is a shallow earthquake type due to the deformation activity of the earth's crust, namely due to the subduction activity of the Maluku Sea," Faisal said in a statement, Thursday, April 2.
The results of the source analysis, he continued, showed that the earthquake had an up-moving or thrust fault mechanism.
This earthquake was felt in Ternate with a V-VI MMI scale, Manado IV-V MMI, Gorontalo, Bone Bolango, and North Gorontalo with a III MMI scale, Bolemo and Pohuwato II-III MMI.
Until now, he continued, there were reports of damage from the earthquake at the KONI Sario Building, Manado and a church in Ternate, North Maluku.
"The results of the modeling show that this earthquake has the potential for a tsunami in the Ternate, Halmahera, Tidore, Bitung City areas with an alert status, with an estimated tsunami height of 0.5 to 3 meters," he said.
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