The quake, which struck at 1:28 a.m. local time, was centered 43 kilometers southeast of Nagan Raya, at a depth of 125 kilometers, the agency notified on its official website.
The tremor, at Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale II, was felt by people living as far away as Gunung Sitoli in the neighboring province of North Sumatra.
Mercalli scale is one of the units to assess the strength of an earthquake, especially in the absence of a seismometer at the site, according to the agency.
A quake of MMI I cannot be felt, except in the event of an extraordinary situation, while an earthquake of MMI II was felt by some people and resulted in the hung light articles shaking.
A quake of MMI III could be felt indoors akin to the movement of a truck, while that of MMI IV could be felt by several people within and outside houses, with the windows or doors creaking and audible wall sounds.
Meanwhile, a quake of MMI V could be felt by nearly all individuals in the affected area and caused articles to dart off and pillars and heavy articles to shake.
No immediate reports were received of any material damage, injuries, or fatalities.
A quake of magnitude 5.3 can cause considerable damage to land.
Aceh bore the brunt of a 9.1-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami on December 26, 2004, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
Indonesia sits on the geographically active “Pacific Ring of Fire” and holds some 40 percent of the world's geothermal reserves.
The Ring of Fire, or the Circum-Pacific belt, is the world’s greatest earthquake belt, according to Live Science, owing to fault lines running from Chile to Japan and Southeast Asia. Related news: Earthquake of magnitude 6.2 strikes Banda Sea
Related news: 5.9-magnitude earthquake jolts Indonesia's West Halmahera district
Translator: Benardy Ferdiansyah/Suharto
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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