Two toddlers were killed, 26 others were wounded and buildings collapsed in Bima regency of the West Nusa Tenggara province after a strong quake with magnitude of 6.7 rocked the province on Sunday night, local television reported early Monday.

 

Metro TV said that all the victims were in Bima regency of the province. One school building in Dompu district and a number of houses collapsed.

 

"We could not confirm the report from the Metro TV yet," an official of the Disaster Management Agency (BAKORNAS) Setyo Sutarmi told Xinhua.

 

"But, our people at the fields were still collecting more information," he said.

 

The main shock struck at 23:02 Jakarta time (1602 GMT) with epicenter at 50 kilometers southwest of Raba town of the province and at 50 kilometers in depth, said Ali Imron, an official of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

 

Twenty-three people were killed and thousands of buildings were destroyed in September after a 7.9 on Richter scale quake hit Bengkulu province in Sumatra Island of Indonesia.

 

In December 2004, over 170,000 people were killed in Aceh province after a tsunami triggered by a strong quake devastated coastal areas of the province and other countries in Southeast Asia..

 

Indonesia lies in a vulnerable zone so-called "the Pacific Ring of Fire" where two continental plates, stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia, meet and cause frequent volcanic movements.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2007)