Another major quake shakes Indonesia

Another earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale has jolted western Indonesia as rescue teams are still working to reach the victims of an earlier powerful earthquake that struck the area.

The earthquake hit Indonesia's Sumatra Island early on Thursday south of the site of an earlier powerful quake where more than 1,000 are feared dead.

"The rescue personnel in the location estimated that so far at least 200 people have died," Disaster Management Agency spokesman Priyadi Kardono said in Jakarta about Wednesday afternoon's 7.6-magnitude quake that caused buildings to crumble and fires to rage in Padang, on the Coast of Sumatra Island.

Head of Crisis Center in the Health Ministry, Rustam Pakaya, said he expected the death toll to soar over 1,000, given the scale of the destruction and the large numbers of people believed to be trapped under the rubble.

The quake comes after a series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa, killing possibly more than 100 people earlier on Wednesday.