Quake hit Indonesia

JAKARTA: A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook the Indonesian island of Sumbawa where people fled their rattling homes on Saturday but no damage or injuries were reported. The quake struck at 2:04 pm (0604 GMT) and was centred 261 km south of the town of Raba on Sumbawa in the east of the Indonesian archipelago, the US Geological Survey in a statement. Raba residents said the quake sparked panic. The quake struck 33 km under the seabed, the USGS said. It was not strong enough to trigger a tsunami, Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency seismologist Budi Waluyo said.

Mine mishap

BEIJING: Flooding trapped 16 coal miners in northeastern China on Saturday, while the death toll from a gas blast at another mine rose to 10. The flooding occurred on Friday afternoon after a cave-in at the mine in Meikou city in Jilin province, a provincial work safety official said. Reports first said 17 miners were trapped, but the official Xinhua News Agency said one miner was later found at home. Xinhua said the cave-in occurred about 1 km inside the mine. Separately, rescuers late Friday found a final body, bringing the death toll from a gas explosion at a coal mine in southern China to 10.

Space station safe

CAPE CANAVERAL: NASA says a piece of old space junk that it's been tracking for a few days is no threat to the International Space Station. But there's another piece of debris in the space station's neighbourhood. Mission Control decided late Friday that the outpost would not need to dodge a 10-year-old rocket chunk. The Delta rocket was launched in 1999 with NASA's comet-chasing spacecraft, Stardust. Experts concluded the junk would come no closer than five-and-a-half miles Saturday. In fact, it was moving away from the station. On Friday, NASA spotted an old science payload from a previous shuttle mission in the vicinity of the 355-km-high) space station. It's expected to come within 14 km on Monday. For now, it's not considered a threat.