JAKARTA: A strong, shallow earthquake rocked parts of eastern Indonesia early Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The US Geological Survey said the 6.3-magnitude quake was centered 343 kilometers miles northwest of Saumlaki, a coastal town in Maluku province, at a depth of 9 kilometers beneath the sea.

Indonesia's Meteorology, Earthquake and Geophysics Agency put its preliminary magnitude at 6.7 and said that the quake was unlikely to trigger a tsunami, said Suhardjono, the agency official who like many Indonesians uses a single name.

The world's largest archipelago, Indonesia is prone to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific ''Ring of Fire,'' an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

An earthquake in the region had killed 22 people earlier this year.

Another 8.7 earthquake that struck west of Indonesia on April 2012 was the biggest of its kind ever recorded.

A huge quake struck off Aceh in 2004, sparking a tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province on Sumatra and tens of thousands more in countries around the Indian Ocean.