Tens of people have been injured and hundreds of houses damaged after an earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale rocked the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua. 

According to the US Geological Survey, the quake hit at 00:53 a.m. local time on Friday (1553 GMT Thursday), and was centered 28 kilometers (17 miles) north of the coastal city of Sorong. The quake happened at a depth of 24 kilometers (15 miles).

Sutopo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, said the natural mishap left 62 people injured and damaged 200 houses.

"We are still collecting information and we expect the number of people injured and buildings damaged to increase," he added.

Budi Waluyo, an official from Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, said the undersea quake had no potential to generate tsunami waves.

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago, and is prone to earthquakes due to its location on an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin, known as the “Ring of Fire,” a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.

In 2004, an undersea megathrust earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh, triggering devastating tsunami waves. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history as 290,000 people reportedly lost their lives in a dozen countries.