"My first thought was it was another bomb," said Matt Gyde, a Singapore-based Australian on a New Year holiday in Bali.

"I shouted to my mates 'get out of here!' but fortunately it didn't last that long. It was over pretty quickly."

Officials said the quake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, hit at around 5 a.m. local time off the Bali coast, lasting about five seconds.

A district chief in the city of Mataram on Lombok told local Elshinta radio: "An earthquake shook our city at five o'clock this morning. Some houses were heavily-damaged. One person died because of the quake."

The radio said the elderly man died as a result of shock.

"It has caused some cracks in roofs and windows. So far I don't see any significant damage," said Jumadi, head of the meteorological and geophysics agency in Bali's capital Denpasar.

Two bombs killed 202 people -- most foreigners and many Australians -- when they were detonated by Muslim extremists in Bali in October 2002. Tourism suffered drastically as a result, but has been making a comeback.

Managers at several hotels contacted by Reuters on Bali and Lombok said they had felt the quake, but that there had been no damage and guests were going about their usual activities.

Officials in the town of Karangasem, some 50 km northeast of Denpasar and closer to the epicenter, said at least nine local residents sustained injures from the quake, mostly broken bones.

Earthquakes frequently hit Indonesia, which is located on the seismically active Pacific "Ring of Fire," occasionally causing widespread damage and loss of life.

In December 1992 an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale killed about 2,200 people on the Indonesian island of Flores, east of Bali.

AFP from Mexico City adds: A medium-intensity earthquake centered near Pacific Coast tourist spots was felt as far away as Mexico City, but caused no reported injuries, geological officials said Thursday.

"The only thing was panic among tourists in Acapulco," officials of the Earthquake Alert System told local radio stations.

The quake, measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale, struck at 17:32 pm local time. Its epicenter was in the western state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast, the officials said.

Local radio stations said that poorly built homes suffered damage in Guerrero state and electricity was momentarily cut in the region.

A major earthquake measuring 6.8 on the same scale killed at least 30,000 people in Iran a week ago.