A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck in Indonesia’s eastern Aru Islands, though there was no immediate warning of a tsunami, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake struck at 9:12pm (local time) at a depth of 8.7 kilometres and 63 kilometres north-west of Dobo, in the Aru Islands, and 664 kilometres east-southeast of Ambon in the Moluccas, the USGS said.
Suharjono, the technical head of the Indonesia Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics, said no reports of casualties or damage had been received yet from the remote region.
“The reason could be that there is no significant effect from the quake, but there are many islands in the region and quakes are common there,” said Suharjono, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.
“We will continue to monitor” for quake damage, he said, adding that there was no tsunami potential despite the quake occurring offshore.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific “ring of fire”, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity, and the archipelago is frequently struck by powerful earthquakes.
