JAKARTA (AFP) - A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Timor-Leste on Friday (May 27), the US Geological Survey said.

A tsunami advisory group said the earthquake "may be capable of generating a tsunami affecting the Indian Ocean region".

The quake struck at a depth of 51.4km off the eastern tip of Timor Island, USGS said, which is split between Timor-Leste and Indonesia.

The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWMS) issued the tsunami warning for the region.

An AFP journalist in the East Timor capital Dili felt the earthquake, but said it was “very quick”.

“People went about their activities as usual,” the journalist said.

Timor-Leste and Indonesia sit on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches through South-east Asia and across the Pacific basin.

In February, a 6.2-magnitude quake killed a dozen people when it struck neighbouring Indonesia's North Sumatra.

In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake hit the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 people throughout the region, including about 170,000 in Indonesia.

Timor-Leste has a population of 1.3 million and is South-east Asia’s youngest country, recently celebrating the 20th anniversary of its independence.  

The former Portuguese colony became independent from Indonesia in 2002 after 24 years of occupation.  

Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, a 72-year-old revolutionary hero, became president earlier this month after winning an election.  

Mr Ramos-Horta was also the country’s second prime minister after independence.  

The mostly rural country’s economy has been badly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the World Bank saying 42 per cent of the population live below the poverty line.