A powerful earthquake shook Indonesia’s capital today rattling tall buildings and panicking residents.

The tremor that hit Jakarta stuck in the early hours of Thursday morning and was preliminarily measured at a magnitude of 7.4. The US geological survey said it struck 180 miles beneath the sea.

Residents said buildings in the capital, 66 miles from the epicentre, were shaking violently.

There are no reports of damage as yet, but Victor Sardina, of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in the US state of Hawaii said the strength of the tremor could cause a huge amount of structural damage.

West Java island was most directly hit by the quake which occurred northwest of Indramayu.

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire” a sweep of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

A massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami on December 26, 2004, killed more than 131,000 people in Indonesia’s Aceh province and left half a million homeless.

The Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a bulletin saying there was “no possibility of a tsunami” because of the depth of the quake.

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