More Earthquakes Rock 'Ring of Fire'

The year is turning out to be a terrible one for earthquakes. Yesterday, regions of Indonesia, Japan, and Sri Lanka were hit by quakes of magnitude 6.0 or higher, according to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). So far there have been no reports of casualties in the regions.

A magnitude 6.4 quake struck eastern Indonesia in Moluccas, called the Spice Islands, at 9:57 a.m. local time Sunday, (Saturday 7:57 p.m. EST) at a depth of 32.6 miles. Moluccas is 1,500 miles east of the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, and about 760 miles northwest of Darwin, Australia.

On Sunday evening, 5:08 p.m. local time (Sunday, 3:08 a.m. EDT), a magnitude 6.6 quake hit near the east coast of Honshu Japan at a depth of 24.2 miles with tremors being felt in Tokyo, 175 miles north east.

The third quake, registering 6.0, struck in the Indian ocean, 710 miles off the coast of Columbo, Sri Lanka at a depth of 6.2 miles. That one occurred at 2:33 a.m. local time (4:33 p.m. EDT).

Fortunately no tsunamis, the greatest concern for coastal quakes, were reported yesterday.

All the seismic events occurred on the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe shaped arc around the Pacific Ocean basin, where the majority of earth's volcano’s and earthquakes occur.