Tidal surges reached the Australian territories of Christmas and Cocos Island after a quake off Indonesia on Monday.
SYDNEY: Tidal surges reached the Australian territories of Christmas Island and Cocos Island after an earthquake off Indonesia on Monday but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, an official said.
A small surge could also possibly have reached the northwestern coast of Australia, a spokesman for Geoscience Australia said.
Australia's weather bureau and emergency management service had alerted emergency services in the islands and Western Australia, he said.
A 60 centimetre (24-inch) surge, described as 'quite small", was recorded on the Christmas Island tide gauge and 10 centimetres on Cocos Island.
Geoscience Australia predicted a small surge would also reach the northwestern parts of Western Australia's coastline about three hours after the earthquake at 0819 GMT.
A spokesman said the time for the predicted surge to have reached the coast had passed and there were no immediate reports of any serious impact.
"This was a shallow event, occurring below the Indian Ocean," Geoscience Australia duty seismologist David Jepsen said in a statement.
"The earthquake could have been felt within an 1,100 kilometer (687 mile) radius of the epicenter."
Several large magnitude six earthquakes occurred in the same location following the major temblor, he said.
"This is a very active region, being the eastern part of the tectonic plate boundary that ruptured and caused the tsunami that devastated countries bordering the Indian Ocean in December 2004."
The quake spawned a tsunami which hit the coast of Indonesia's Java island, killing at least eight people and leaving an unknown number of others missing as the waves wrecked buildings and sent boats piling onto land.
It was not immediately clear how high the waves were when they hit the coastal town of Pangandaran around an hour after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake jolted the seabed south of Java island.
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