The strong quake hit 258 kilometres (160 miles) northeast of the city of Manado in North Sulawesi at a depth of 68 kilometres.

Indonesia experiences frequent quakes due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

In January, more than 100 people were killed and thousands left homeless by a 6.2-magnitude quake that struck Sulawesi, reducing buildings to a tangled mass of twisted metal and chunks of concrete in the seaside city of Mamuju.

A powerful quake shook the island of Lombok in 2018 and several more tremors followed over the next couple of weeks, killing more than 550 people on the holiday island and neighbouring Sumbawa.

Later that year, a 7.5-magnitude quake and a subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi island left more than 4,300 people dead or missing.