An undersea earthquake struck near Indonesia’s Moluccas islands on Tuesday but Indonesian officials said it was of moderate strength and there was no risk of a tsunami.
The state meteorological agency downgraded its initial estimate of the quake’s magnitude and withdrew a tsunami warning.
”The tsunami warning has been cancelled. The epicentre of the quake was 33km in the sea with a magnitude of 5,4 on the Richter scale,” Subagio, an official at the agency, said.
Earlier, the agency had pegged the magnitude at 6,4.
The quake was centred south-west of Tual island under the Banda Sea, due east of East Timor and due north of Darwin in northern Australia, the agency said. — Reuters