Molucca Sea

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Coordinates: 0°25′S, 125°25′E

The Molucca Sea is located in the western Pacific Ocean, within the country of Indonesia.

The seas it borders are the Banda Sea to the south and the Celebes Sea to the north.

The islands bordering the Sea are the Indonesian islands of Halmahera, Ceram, Buru, and Celebes (Sulawesi).

The sea is an active earthquake area. An earthquake ranked at 6.3 on the Richter Scale occurred on 21 December, 2005, centering 190 km south of Manado. A 5.4 earthquake occurred in the same region on 16 May, 2006, and a 6.1 earthquake shook the sea on 19 May, 2006. Recent activity is a 5.5 quake on June 14, 2006. A recent earthquake ranked at 7.3 (PRE) occurred on 21 January, 2007 with several smaller earthquakes ranking approximately 5.0 within 24 hours the first earthquake. Another recent Earthquake occurred on March 17th, 2007, reaching 6.5 on the richter scale.^[1] An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale occurred on the 21st of November, 2007. The most recent activity was an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale on May 28, 2008.^[2]

[edit] Molucca Sea Incident

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The Molucca Sea Incident was a small confrontation between the Philippine Navy and the Indonesian Maritime Naval Patrol. The Incident occurred when three Philippine naval ships, two US ships and two Australian ship were doing some naval exercises in the Philippine side of the Molucca Sea when suddenly six Indonesian speedboats appeared and fired at the US and Philippine ships. One of the US ships returned fire but missed, then the Indonesian navy boats just suddenly turned back. Indonesia claims that the Naval exercises were to close to Indonesian waters,^{[citation needed]} that the US, Philippine, and Australian ships shouldn't have been there in the first place, and that the US ships shouldn't have opened fire. The US navy said the reason they returned fire was because they were fired upon first, and Indonesia should have warned them before returning fire. This did not affect Philippine-Indonesian relations but did affect US-Indonesian relations.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Notes

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