The earthquake, which has since been downgraded from a 7.8 to a magnitude of 7.6, struck at a local time of 6.48am in the Molucca Sea, stated the USGS.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center announced that hazardous tsunami waves were possible “within 1,000km of the epicentre” along the coasts of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The epicentre of the quake was approximately 120 kilometres from the Indonesian city of Ternate, in the archipelago’s North Maluku province, which has a population of over 205,000, as per the USGS.