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JAKARTA， Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Social Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said on Wednesday that relief aid and volunteers will be immediately sent to the westernmost province of Aceh which was just hit by a devastating earthquake earlier in the day.


"We want to assure that our mobile food processor can access the location in Pidie Jaya. We would maximize our assistance and relief distribution to the affected area despite problems due to the cracked roads heading there，" the minister said in a statement.


She said about 33，000 volunteers will also be deployed to Pidie Jaya.


First batch of materials to arrive will be foods， tents and clothes and the National Disaster Mitigation Agency will cooperate with the Social Ministry and local authorities in the rescue work， the minister said.


An earthquake of 6.4 magnitude struck Pidie Jaya at 5:03 a.m. Wednesday local time， followed by aftershocks in several minutes.


An official at Aceh disaster mitigation agency said that the earthquake has killed at least 40 people and injured 190 others with tens of others still trapped under piles of debris of collapsed buildings.


Epicenter of the earthquake was identified in 10 kilometers north of Aceh northern city of Reuleut， at a depth of 17 kilometers. No tsunami warning has been issued by Indonesian climatology and geophysics agency.


Officials overseeing the affected district of Pidie Jaya， located 18 kilometers southwest from the epicenter， said that at least 40 buildings collapsed due to the earthquake.


Activities to evacuate victims are underway at present. Excavators were deployed to remove debris from collapsed buildings.


Video footage taken by amateurs showed eerie situation on the scene. A two-story mosque collapsed and flattened to the ground. Another footage showed a collapsed compound of shops which was also used as houses where many are believed to be still trapped under piles of debris.


A collapsed house was seen fall onto a car whose lamps were still on and its alarms continue to emit warning sounds.


Reports said that residents in the district frantically sought higher ground to save their families' lives.


Aceh province's capital of Banda Aceh saw a deadly earthquake in Dec. 2004 that was followed by tsunami， killing over 160，000 people.


Indonesia， the world's largest archipelago， is prone to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire，" an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.


NINGBO， Zhejiang， Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- A mysterious banging noise on the surface of a spacecraft that baffled a Chinese astronaut turned out not to be aliens， but the result of air pressure changes.


Yang Liwei， China's first astronaut， aroused public attention when he revealed in a television interview in late November that he heard an unexplained sound like "knocking an iron bucket with a wooden hammer" from outside his capsule during his maiden mission in 2003， leaving him puzzled.


On Thursday， when the famed astronaut attended an event at a school in the eastern city of Ningbo， Zhejiang Province， the question of the mysterious noise was raised by students.


Yang said that according to what he learned the knocking sound was a result of decreasing air pressure that caused changes in the structure of the spacecraft as it left Earth for space.


He said air leaking out of the objects in the capsule could also cause noise.


"I think it is normal，" Yang said. "It is necessary to carefully identify the cause."


Yang's explanation echoed with space scientist Liu Hong， who wrote an article for the popular Chinese science website Guokr， saying that she believes the sound comes from tiny deformations in the space capsule's inner wall materials due to changes in pressure.


Liu is the chief designer of Lunar Palace 1， a facility for conducting bio-regenerative life-support systems experiments key to setting up a lunar base. She said during a 105-day manned airtight test， researchers in the capsule also heard the strange noise.


"They thought someone was knocking outside but no one was found，" Liu wrote. "They got agitated at first， but later calmed down to look for the source of the noise."


Researchers finally realized a change of capsule temperature would cause a change in air pressure， and the difference in pressure between the inner and outer walls of the capsule caused tiny deformations of the wall materials， producing the sound "Dong! Dong! Dong!"


"We may encounter all sorts of unexplained phenomena as we explore the unknown， but we should always seek a scientific explanation. That is what drives up forward，" Liu said.


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