Dec. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Indonesian island of Sumatra was rocked by a magnitude 8.5 earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. That may rank it among the 10 strongest earthquakes in the last century.
The quake caused casualties and damage, Agence France-Presse said, without giving any details. The quake was felt 950 kilometers (589 miles) away in Singapore.
The temblor, which struck about 7 a.m. local time, was centered offshore about 1,605 kilometers northwest of the capital Jakarta, at a depth of 10 kilometers, U.S. seismologists said in a preliminary report on the Web site.
The earthquake would rank among the 10 strongest recorded since 1900, if the preliminary reading isn't revised lower, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.
The Indonesian quake is the second this year of magnitude 8 or greater. Last week a magnitude 8.1 temblor was recorded in the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica.
Magnitude 8 earthquakes are capable of causing severe loss of life if centered near heavily populated areas. An 8.1 quake in Mexico City in 1985 killed about 9,500 people.
Indonesia's 18,000 islands are prone to earthquakes because the nation sits along the Pacific "ring of fire," a zone of active volcanoes and faults in tectonic plates.
Last month 17 people were killed and 33 injured in a 6.4- magnitude earthquake in the eastern Indonesian province of Papua.
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