JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- A powerful earthquake rocked western Indonesia before dawn Thursday, sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes and briefly triggering a tsunami warning.
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A woman salvages items from her newly built house at Air Besi in North Bengkulu Thursday.
The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 and struck 85 miles west of Bengkulu, a coastal town on Sumatra island, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was centered 18 miles beneath the ocean floor.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Japan's Meteorological Agency said there was a small possibility it could trigger a destructive tsunami. But the wave never came, and Indonesian authorities later lifted the alert.
There were no reports of damage after the tremor, which struck at 4 a.m., according to Arizal, a local meteorological official, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.
Residents in Bengkulu -- still jittery following a series of powerful quakes that struck the region early last month -- fled their homes, el-Shinta radio reported.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago with a population of 235 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.