An earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale has rocked Indonesia's capital, the US geological survey said.

Residents of Jakarta said buildings were shaken violently as the quake hit early on Thursday.

It was also felt in Yogyakarta in central Java, where in July 2006 an earthquake killed nearly 6,000 people.

The epicentre of the quake was 112km from the city on the north coast of the island of Java.
 
The Pacific tsunami warning centre said the tremor - which happened 291km below the sea - was "located too deep inside the earth to generate a tsunami in the Indian Ocean".

The Japanese meteorological agency also issued a bulletin saying there was "no possibility of a tsunami".

The Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire where the continental plates meet causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

About 81 per cent of the world's earthquakes occur in this area which extends from Chile, northwards along the South American coast through Central America, the west coast of the United States, through the Aleutian Islands to Japan, the Philippine Islands, New Guinea, the island groups of the southwest Pacific, and to New Zealand.

Indonesia was the nation worst-hit when an earthquake triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December 2004. More than 168,000 people were killed in Aceh province alone during that event.