Over 300 buildings were seriously damaged and over 3,000 people escaped from their homes after a 7.4 magnitude quake rocked North Sulawesi province on Thursday morning, according to the Health Ministry.

The quake damaged houses, religious centers, school buildings and hospitals, but no report of casualties, head of a crisis center of the Ministry Rustam Pakaya said.

"A total of 278 houses were seriously damaged and 197 others suffered from minor damages, 4 school buildings were also damaged," he told Xinhua.

The head of the center said that 2 religious buildings were also seriously damaged and a part of a hospital building was collapsed. "Ten people were wounded seriously in the quake and 32 others were injured. But there was no report of fatalities," said Pakaya.

Pakaya said that currently the evacuees lived in some shelters in the province after their houses were destroyed by the quake.

Medical team was helping the victims of the disaster at the fields, he said.

The quake happened at 00:34 Jakarta time (1734 GMT) with epicenter at 112 km southeast Melongue of the province and at 10 km undersea bed, said Sutiyono, official of the country's Meteorology Agency.

In December 2004, over 230 people died in countries along the Indian Ocean and 170 of them in Aceh of Indonesia after tsunami triggered by strong quake rocked the areas.

(Xinhua News Agency February 12, 2009)