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The KM Cahaya Arafah had left the seaport on Ternate Island on Monday morning and was heading to West Gane subdistrict in South Halmahera district.

The bee liked to make its home in termite nests so the modern-day adventurers took a boat to Halmahera, the largest of the North Maluku islands, and met with the head of the village where the bee was last seen to help locate the most likely nests.

“People were running from their houses,” said North Halmahera Disaster Mitigation Agency official Pius Ohoiwutun.

“The local disaster mitigation agency in Ternate has also said that the people who were staying away from beaches started returning to their homes this morning,” he said in a statement, adding that calm had returned to the city of Bitung on Sulawesi island and in the Halmahera district in the Moluccas.

He said a police dormitory and several houses of villagers in South Halmahera district, near the epicenter, were damaged.