Nearly 12 persons were killed and 30 injured when an earthquake with a magnitude of six on the Richter scale hit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi recently. The quake, centred 20 km north of the coastal town of Pare Pare, in South Sulawesi province, hit the island at 8.30 am local time.

The building of Fatima hospital, one of the two main hospitals in Pare Pare, was structurally damaged. Indonesia is prone to earthquake because it is located on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire' that stretches from North America, across the North Pacific, through Japan and Southeast Asia and New Zealand.