Strong earthquake in Indonesia damages buildings

Several houses and buildings were destroyed after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked Indonesia's eastern province of Maluku earlier Tuesday, officials and weather agency said.

The country's meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency had reported the quake at 7.9 magnitude before revising it to 7.5, head of the Quake and Tsunami Mitigation Division of the agency named only Daryono told Xinhua by phone.

Several houses and building were impacted by the earthquake, some of them cracked and some others collapsed, Doni B. Layan, head of operational unit of the disaster management and mitigation agency in Kepulauan Tanimbar district, the hardest hit area, told Xinhua via phone.

The official said that an assessment would be conducted to find out precisely the impact of the tremors.

So far, he said, there were no preliminary reports of residents injured.

The official said that over 2,000 people in the district had escaped coastal areas after the quake.

"We have carried out several times of drill over an anticipation of tsunami. So when the quake happened, the residents rushed to leave the coastal areas and headed to higher grounds," said Layan.

Previously, Eva M.F. Tuhumury, a senior official of disaster management agency in the province, told Xinhua via phone that the residents in the district of Maluku Barat Daya had fled the coastal areas for safety.

The tremors of the earthquake were also felt in several nearby provinces, according to the weather agency.

The quake occurred at 00:47 am (1747 GMT) with its epicenter located 148 km northwest of Maluku Tenggara Barat (Kepulauan Tanimbar) district and a depth of 131 km under the seabed, the agency said.

Three aftershocks from weak to moderate levels followed the main shock, according to DaryoNo.

The agency had issued a tsunami alert the province and the nearby province of Southeast Sulawesi, but the tsunami did not occur.