JAKARTA: A powerful 7.4-magnitude offshore earthquake struck eastern Indonesia early Thursday, the United States Geological Survey said, prompting a warning from a US monitoring agency about the possibility of “hazardous tsunami waves” within a 1, 000-kilometre radius of the epicentre.
According to the USGS, the earthquake’s epicentre was located at 1.20 degrees north latitude and 126.35 degrees east longitude.
The quake occurred at a depth of around 30 kilometres, as reported by the China Earthquake Networks Center.
The tremor, which was initially recorded at a magnitude of 7.8, struck at approximately 6:48 a.m. local time in the Molucca Sea, the USGS added.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert stating that hazardous tsunami waves were possible “within 1, 000 km of the epicentre, ” particularly along coastal areas of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.