Fresh quake rattles IMF delegates

An earthquake killed three people in Indonesia on Thursday and rattled hotels where IMF delegates are attending a summit, a fortnight after a quaketsunami killed more than 2,000 elsewhere in the archipelago.

The 6.0-magnitude quake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Bali and Java islands in the early hours, injuring nearly 30 people and sending residents rushing into the streets.

Some attendees in Bali for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings this week evacuated their hotels as the quake shook the island.

“I felt the quake for at least 30 seconds and I panicked,” Katharina Sudiyono, an Indonesian attendee at reporters.

Peter Jacobs, head of the Indonesian Central Bank’s IMFWorld Bank taskforce, said delegates in Bali’s Nusa Dua district for the summit were quickly informed of the situation.

“Many summit participants woke up and asked questions, but we immediately sent out the summit, told information to them that there had been an earthquake,” he told reporters.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in Bali, and the summit proceeded on Thursday uninterrupted.

“Here in Bali, the earthquake has not caused significant damage nor any disruption to the meetings,” an IMF spokesperson said.

The conference centre was designed to withstand seismic events, and participants had been told to remain there in the event of a quake.

Dwikorita Karnawati, the head of Indonesia’s geophysics agency who was also in Nusa Dua for the IMF summit, said no tsunami warning was issued.

The tremor’s epicentre was in the Bali Sea about 40km off the eastern end of Java island, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The tremor comes after a 7.5magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami struck off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi last month, killing more than 2,000 people.