Jakarta - Indonesian authorities lifted a tsunami warning after tidal waves did not materialize following a powerful earthquake that struck the eastern province of North Maluku on Thursday morning.

An official at Indonesia's National Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said that a tsunami warning had been lifted, more than 40 minutes after the 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck the Halmahera Island at about 7 am (0000 GMT).

Jakarta - Indonesia issued a tsunami warning Thursday after a powerful earthquake struck the eastern province of North Maluku, seismologists said.

The quake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck about 7 am (0000 GMT), with its epicentre on the sea about 122 kilometres north- west of Ternate, the provincial capital on North Maluku. It occurred at a depth of 10 kilometres, Indonesia's National Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said in a short message.

Jakarta - Australia announced Wednesday it will provide 50 billion rupiah (5.36 million dollars) to help improve food security and reduce malnutrition among children in eastern Indonesia, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said.

The contribution was announced by Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Bill Farmer, while visiting a clinic in Kupang, West Timor, the WFP said in a press statement.

"It is with pleasure that I announce that from 2008-10 Australia is providing the WFP with a further 50 billion rupiah (6.5 million Australian dollars)," the statement quoted Farmer as saying.

Jakarta - At least 11 people were killed in a landslide and floods that swept through villages in two Indonesian provinces, local media reports said Wednesday.

In South Kalimantan province on the Indonesian portion of Borneo island, heavy floods have inundated thousands of homes in a number of districts for the past three weeks and claimed the lives of at least seven people, the state-run Antara news agency reported.

Jakarta - A shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia's Sumatra island Tuesday, leaving one woman dead and 20 people injured, geologists and media reports said.

The quake hit at 10:07 am (0307 GMT) and was centred 51 kilometres south-west of Tebingtinggi in Bengkulu province, or about 64 kilometres north-west of Lahat in South Sumatra province, the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said via text message.

The quake struck at a depth of 10 kilometres, it said.

Jakarta - Search teams failed to find any sign of a Polish tourist who went missing eight days ago while scuba diving off the easternmost Indonesian province of Papua, local media reports said Sunday.

Kemal Abbas, chief of the Cenderawasih Bay National Park, said Robert Zsupuru, along with 10 other Polish tourists, left for the Auri Islands, near Matas Island off the Papua province August 27.

"On their third day, all of them went diving, but since then Robert has not been found," Kemal was quoted as saying by The Jakarta Post.

According to the search teams, Robert had most likely run out of oxygen while diving at a depth of greater than 80 meters, the newspaper reported.