7.0-magnitude quake shakes northern Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia issued a tsunami warning after a powerful quake struck waters off its eastern coast early Thursday, a local agency said. it was not immediately clear if the temblor caused any injures or damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.0-magnitude quake was centered 195 miles (315 kilometers) from Manado, the northernmost city on Sulawesi island. It said it had a depth of about 20 miles (30 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor.

The country’s local geological agency said in mobile phone text messages sent to reporters that the quake had the power to trigger a tsunami.

Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

In December 2004, a massive earthquake off the country’s western island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that battered much of the Indian Ocean coastline and killed more than 230,000 people — more than half of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province alone. A tsunami off Java island in 2007 killed nearly 5,000.