The quake was centered 84 miles northwest of Gorontalo in the Sulawesi region of Indonesia and was followed up by a 5.6 aftershock. A tsunami warning issued immediately after the quake was later lifted.

Officials said there were no immediate reports of fatalities, Al Jazeera reported.

An Indian Ocean tsunami four years ago caused about 225,000 deaths in Indonesia and 10 other nations.

"This is a much smaller earthquake than the Sumatra earthquake of December 2004," Stuart Weinstein of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii told Al Jazeera. "It is not going to be anything remotely like that."

Al Jazeera said the Indonesian state-run Antara news agency reported thousands of people fled their homes and hotel rooms in Gorontalo when the earthquake struck. At least one person was injured and several buildings collapsed in Gorontalo, which is home to several hundred thousand people. >>>>