Dozens injured as major quake hits Indonesia

At least 36 people were injured and hundreds of homes and buildings damaged after a major earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sulawesi Island near the Philippines early on Thursday, officials said.

The 7.2-magnitude quake struck at sea at 1:34 am local time (2304 IST), prompting Indonesia's geophysics agency to issue a tsunami alert, which was later revoked.

"Our latest data shows that 36 people have been injured, eight of them seriously," the head of the health office in North Sulawesi province's remote Talaud Islands, Saud Arikalang, said.

"Those eight people have open head wounds from collapsing walls," he said.

"Hundreds of houses in several areas have been damaged as well as office buildings, schools and health clinics," a spokesman for the local administration, Manurat, told Elshinta news radio.

Health Ministry crisis centre head Rustam Pakaya said the quake had caused the partial collapse of the main district hospital, forcing patients to be moved to local health clinics.

The epicentre of the shallow quake was about 320 kilometres northeast of the Indonesian town of Manado and 280 kilometres southeast of General Santos in the Philippines, the US Geological Survey said.