A person injured in a March 6 earthquake receives treatment in Indonesia on March 6. AP PHOTO

The magnitude 6.3 quake on Sumatra island was felt hundreds of kilometers away in Singapore, where some office buildings were evacuated, and in Malaysia.

At least two young children along with their teacher were killed in the earthquake when a two-story building crashed onto a playground.

A witness in the town of Payahkumbuh said several shops in the main street had collapsed and police and soldiers were digging for survivors.

Many slept in front of their homes or in the hills the night of March 6.

"Women were crying out in terror. We all fled as quickly as we could," said Alpion, a welder in the seaside town of Padang. Along with thousands of others, he was fleeing to high ground fearing a possible tsunami.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people, including 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province. A tsunami off Java island last year killed nearly 5,000.

The March 6 quake hit about 900 km west of the country's capital Jakarta.

The Japan Times Weekly: March 10, 2007
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