Strong earthquake shakes eastern Indonesia with no immediate reports of casualties

A strong, deep undersea earthquake shook the eastern side of Indonesia on Wednesday with no immediate reports of casualties or damages in the area. The 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit an area 94 kilometres (58 miles) west of Tobelo in Indonesia's North Maluku province, at a depth of 116 kilometres (72 miles).

Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency said there was no potential danger of a tsunami but warned of possible aftershocks. Indonesia, a vast archipelago and a home of more than 270 million people, is frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the so-called “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Basin.

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake last year killed at least 331 people and injured nearly 600 in West Java's Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed about 4,340 people. In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.