Jakarta (AP/PTI): A strong, deep undersea earthquake shook the eastern side of Indonesia on Wednesday with no immediate reports of casualties or damages in the area.

The 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit an area 94 kilometers (58 miles) west of Tobelo in Indonesia's North Maluku province, at a depth of 116 kilometers (72 miles).

Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency said there was no potential danger of a tsunami but warned of possible aftershocks.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago and a home of more than 270 million people, is frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the so-called "Ring of Fire," an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Basin.

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake last year killed at least 331 people and injured nearly 600 in West Java's Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed about 4,340 people.

In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.

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Amaravati (PTI): The Andhra Pradesh government has issued a conditional 'No Objection Certificate' to Vedanta Ltd (Cairn Oil & Gas Division) for drilling 20 onshore wells in Krishna district.

According to a recent Government Order, Vedanta Limited (Cairn Oil & Gas Division) has submitted a representation, stating that their firm was awarded the work of development of the Onshore Oil and Gas Field under the Discovered Small Field (DSF) Policy, 2018.

Further, they requested to grant a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for drilling wells at 35 locations in the block located in various village limits for Onshore Oil and Gas Development and Production, from the Water Resources Department of Andhra Pradesh, as the Bandar Canal passes through the centre of the proposed block.

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“After careful examination of the matter, the government hereby issues ‘No Objection Certificate’ to M/s Vedanta Limited (Cairn Oil & Gas Division), Mumbai, for drilling 20 Nos. of wells at the locations mentioned at para (2) above subject to the terms & conditions as mentioned at para (3) above,” the order said.

The Engineer-in-Chief (Irrigation), Water Resources Department, Vijayawada, the Chief Engineer, Krishna Delta System, Vijayawada, and the Collector of Krishna District shall take necessary action accordingly, it added.

According to the order, the NoC can be issued only from the irrigation point of view and is purely temporary in nature. The applicant shall obtain all required permissions from the departments concerned before commencing operations, as per norms.

No water shall be drawn from irrigation canal sources such as the Bandar Canal, KDS canal network, drainage network, ponds, reservoirs, or any other surface-water source, it said.

Cairn Oil & Gas, a division of Vedanta Limited, is India’s largest private oil and gas exploration production company, contributing approximately a quarter of the country’s domestic crude production, with a vision to increase this contribution to 50 per cent through sustainable and responsible practices.