Tsunami hits Palu City in Indonesia after 7.5 magnitude earthquake

(UPDATED: 10:26pm) A powerful earthquake hit central Indonesia on Friday, causing a tsunami that slammed into a city on Sulawesi island with officials saying the tremor had levelled "many" buildings.

"A tsunami has happened in Palu," said Rahmat Triyono, head of the agency's earthquake and tsunami division, referring to the city of 350,000 nearly 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the quake's epicentre.

The shallow 7.5 magnitude quake sparked terror among locals who fled into the streets and raced to higher ground fearing tsunami waves.

The disaster agency briefly issued a tsunami warning before lifting it.

But dramatic video footage filmed from the top floor of a parking ramp spiral in Palu, a city of 350,000 nearly 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the quake's epicentre, showed a churning wall of whitewater mow down several buildings and inundate a large mosque.

People living hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre reported feeling the massive shake, hours after a smaller jolt killed at least one person in the same part of the Southeast Asian archipelago.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries after the latest tremor, but it was a higher magnitude than a series of quakes that killed hundreds on the island of Lombok this summer.

The quake hit central Sulawesi island at a shallow depth of some 10 kilometres (six miles), the US Geological Survey said, just hours after a smaller jolt killed at least one person in the same part of the country.

Friday's tremor was centred 78 kilometres north of Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, but was felt in the far south of the island in its largest city Makassar and on the neighbouring island of Kalimantan, Indonesia's portion of Borneo island.

The initial tremor struck as evening prayers were about to begin in the world's biggest Muslim majority country on the holiest day of the week when mosques would be especially busy.

READ: Powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocks Indonesia, buildings collapse