A quake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale struck off Indonesia's Aceh province on Wednesday, the meteorology and geophysics agency said, but there were no reports of deaths or casualties and no local tsunami warning was issued.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was 7.5 magnitude and occurred at a depth of 34 kilometres.

It struck at 0808GMT and was centred about 310 km south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Aceh province, which was hit by a devastating tsunami in 2004 that left more than 170,000 dead or missing in Indonesia.

A Reuters witness said strong tremors were felt in Banda Aceh for over a minute, sending people pouring out on the streets in panic.

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.

Indonesia suffers from frequent earthquakes. The archipelago lies on an area of intense seismic activity where a number of tectonic plates collide.-Reuters