A 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia's West Papua province at 7:33 AM on Sunday (2233 GMT on Saturday), according to the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).

Three people, including a child, were killed in the earthquakes hitting eastern Indonesia's West Papua province on Sunday morning, the leading website DetikNews quoted a BMG official as saying.

Three people were found killed in the disaster, including a 10- year-old girl, the official said.

In addition, at least three people were injured, several stories of two hotels collapsed, some local residential buildings and two banks were destroyed. Electricity and telecommunication went off, and people fled their homes.

The search and rescue work is continuing in the area.

The earthquakes which hit West Papua province on Sunday morning were measuring 7.2, 5.1, 6.1, 5.1 and 7.6 degrees at the Richter scale, respectively. The strongest 7.6-magnitude aftershock struck at 7:33?AM local time (2233 GMT Saturday), with its epicenter at 0.88 degrees southern latitude, 133.38 degrees eastern longitude and a depth of 10 km below sea level.

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2009)