(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-20 19:13

BANDA ACEH - A 7.5 magnitude quake struck off Indonesia's Aceh province on Wednesday killing at least three people and damaging buildings on the nearby island of Simeulue, a local official said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's depth was 34 km (21 miles) and that it occurred at 0808 GMT. No local tsunami warning was issued.

The epicentre was about 310 km (190 miles) south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Aceh province, which was hit by a devastating tsunami in 2004. More than 170,000 people died or went missing in Aceh in the tsunami.

Three bodies have been recovered from the rubble of collapsed houses on Simeulue, a small island close to the quake's epicentre, said Bobby Satria, head of the local rescue team's secretariat.

He told Reuters that 25 people had been injured in the quake, while scores of people on the island have left their homes.

A Reuters witness in Banda Aceh said that strong tremors were felt in the provincial capital for over a minute. People rushed out onto the streets in panic, he said.

Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency said the quake measured 6.6 on the Richter scale. The agency recorded at least two aftershocks in the same area about 20 minutes after the first tremor, one measuring 5.5 and the other 5.3 on the Richter scale.

Budi Waluyo, the agency's head of early earthquake warning, said the quake was felt strongly in Meulaboh, in Aceh, and Gunung Sitoli on Nias island.

"An earthquake of 6.6 can damage houses," Waluyo told Reuters.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami watch for Indonesia but said that a destructive widespread tsunami threat did not exist based on historical earthquake and tsunami data.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a local watch bulletin, saying there was no threat of a "destructive widespread tsunami" but that a local tsunami could affect coastal areas within a 100-kilometre radius.

An AFP correspondent in the Aceh capital of Banda Aceh said the quake was felt there for about two minutes.

People initially ran outside in panic, but quickly calmed down, the reporter said.

Elshinta radio also quoted listeners as saying panic had hit the population in North Sumatra's capital of Medan, where people also rushed out of buildings.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where continental plates meet, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

The earthquake-triggered Asian tsunami in December 2004 killed some 168,000 people in Aceh, which is located at the northern tip of Sumatra. Indonesia was the nation worst hit by the tsunami.

Simeulue was one of the islands closest to the epicentre of the quake that sparked the tsunami, but the waves killed fewer than 10 people in part because the 70,000-strong population knew the receding sea was a sign of the impending disaster and fled inland.

In 2005, entire villages on Simeulue were destroyed by a quake which killed at least 17 people.