An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 struck off the west coast of Indonesia’s Northern Sumatra last night, the US Geological Survey reported, as a brief tsunami warning was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.

The quake, which had a depth of 29 kilometres, hit at 2.37 a.m. (1837 GMT) around 420 kilometres southwest of Banda Aceh.

An official at Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said it also had put out a tsunami alert, but this was lifted two hours later. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

In Banda Aceh, the ground shook for 30 seconds and terrified residents rushed out of their homes, but they returned indoors shortly after.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.