An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 was registered off the coast of Indonesia.
This was announced by the US Geophysical Institute USGS.
The earthquake's epicenter was located
427 kilometers south of the Indonesian island of Ambon
, at a depth of 95 kilometers, the USGS reported. The Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) signaled some
aftershocks of
magnitude 5.5 and raised the alarm for a potential tsunami, which was later lifted.
Indonesia experiences frequent seismic activity due to its location on the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' where tectonic plates collide.
On 21 November, an earthquake measuring 5.6 hit the main island of Java, killing 602 people.
But the most devastating earthquake occurred on December 26, 2004 off the coast of Sumatra: the magnitude 9.1 earthquake generated a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed more than 230,000 people in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
