Earthquake shakes buildings in northern Australian city

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 shook houses in the northern Australian port city of Darwin Monday but there were no reports of any damage or injuries.

The earthquake hit at 9:51 a.m. (0021 GMT) beneath the Banda Sea about 500 kilometers (310 miles) northwest of Darwin, said Cvetan Sinadinovski of Geoscience Australia, the government's geological organization.

Sinadinovski said the quake did not generate a tsunami. Most of Darwin was destroyed and 65 people died when a category four cyclone hammered the city on Christmas Eve in 1974, AP reports.

A. A.