JAKARTA: On Wednesday, the eastern regions of Indonesia were shaken by a powerful earthquake, but no serious injuries or damage was reported.
The magnitude 6.1 earthquake was located 65 kilometers (40 miles) south-southeast of Gorontalo, according to the US Geological Survey. It was centered 147 kilometers (91 miles) under the sea. Gorontalo, North Sulawesi, North Maluku, and Central Sulawesi provinces were shaken by it.
Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency did not issue a tsunami warning.
Due to its position on the "Ring of Fire," an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Basin, Indonesia, a vast archipelago home to more than 270 million people, experiences frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
In West Java, at least 331 people were killed on November 21 by an earthquake with magnitude 5.6. It was the deadliest quake and tsunami in Indonesia since about 4,340 people were killed in Sulawesi in 2018.
In 2004, a powerful earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami that killed over 230,000 people in a dozen countries, the majority of whom were located in Indonesia's Aceh province.