Earthquake of magnitude 4.8 hits Indonesia

Jakarta: An moderate frequency earthquake on Wednesday hit Indonesia which was recently devastated by a deadly volcano-triggered tsunami in Sunda Strait that claimed lives of more than 400 people. The quake on Wednesday was of magnitude 4.8 that struck 78 km east of Mataram.

Indonesia has been facing the constant wrath of earthquakes and tsunamis. Notably, on Wednesday this year, the country marks 14 years of the deadly tsunami that hit the island nation in 2004.

On December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1, had struck with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Sumatra triggering a massive tsunami. The calamity had witnessed the loss of lives of 230,000 people across several south and southeast Asian countries -- Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Thailand and several others, besides inflicting massive damage.

Indonesia is situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity that is shaken every year by some 7,000 earthquakes, most of them moderate.