Police across Darwin and other parts of the Northern Territory were swamped with telephone calls from residents reporting rattling windows and shaking furniture during the tremor.
The shaking was reported to have lasted up to five minutes in some areas. But the strongest earth movements occurred over a one-minute period.
Authorities in Indonesia cancelled a tsunami alert after it became clear that the epicenter was far too deep to have caused any significant changes in sea level.
The U.S. Geological Survey placed the epicenter 225 miles southeast of Ambon, Indonesia, and 435 miles north of Darwin at a depth of 83 miles beneath the Banda Sea.