Tsunami panic after huge quake

[Red Squirrel]

Wow that must be scary.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,...1447291,00.html

·Earthquake measures 8.7 on Richter scale
·Evacuations and terror as alerts issued across Asia
·Dozens reported dead on Indonesian island: Tsunami panic after quake

John Aglionby in Banda Aceh, Randeep Ramesh in Delhi, Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Patrick Barkham
Tuesday March 29, 2005
The Guardian

Survivors of the Boxing Day tsunami fled their homes in terror last night after a huge undersea earthquake measuring up to 8.7 on the Richter scale struck off the coast of Sumatra, leaving dozens dead close to its epicentre.

Ninety-three days after giant waves left nearly 300,000 people dead or missing, there were reports of "dozens" of new casualties on the Indonesian island of Nias.

The island's main town was likely to be 75% damaged, local police said. Residents were said to be trapped in damaged buildings after the earthquake struck on the same faultline as the Boxing Day quake, 250 miles south-east of Banda Aceh.

Article continues
The deputy police chief in Gunungsitoli town, Nias, said: "I have seen three bodies. Many people are hurt and many are still trapped in buildings. The earthquake was massive, it's still shaking now."

Agus Mendrofa, a district official on Nias island, said: "Hundreds of buildings have been damaged or have collapsed. We're not sure about casualties, but there may be dozens of people buried in the rubble."

"Things are quite bad right now," one unnamed male resident told local television. "There is much damage. People are running in panic. Many people are also trapped."

At least 340 Nias residents died and 10,000 were left homeless in the December 26 earthquake.

With a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean still the subject of political debate, governments in Thailand, India and Japan attempted to warn local people over radio and TV after the earthquake struck 19 miles under the Andaman Sea at 11.09pm local time.

In the Indonesian province of Aceh, tens of thousands of people abandoned tents and temporary homes and ran for high ground in darkness when the earth shook for two minutes, far longer than the much smaller quakes that have rocked the area in recent weeks.

Electricity and phone lines were down across much of Sumatra as the earthquake was felt as far away as Bangkok and Singapore, where tall buildings swayed and people in high-rise hotels streamed on to the streets.

Recorded at 8.7 by the US Geological Survey and 8.5 by Japan's Meteorological Agency, with an epicentre further south than the Boxing Day earthquake, seismologists gave warning that the latest earthquake had the potential to create another destructive tsunami at the end of a week of at least seven smaller aftershocks in the region.

Residents in the Sumatran city of Medan said they felt the tremors were stronger than on December 26. "It was very strong," said a telephone operator in Medan. "We all ran out of the building."

In Thailand, cracks in buildings appeared, apparently caused by the quake, in southern provinces and people were evacuated from hotels and hospitals in Phuket, Phang-nga and Krabi, the areas worst affected by December's tsunami. Warnings were issued over the radio by officials charged with setting up a tsunami warning system in the country.

"About 3,000 to 4,000 tourists and locals have been evacuated from Patong and Kamala beaches to higher places," Wichai Buapradit, the deputy governor of Phuket, told Reuters. "We've told them to take their valuable belongings and to go to higher places."

Sirens rang out in Sri Lanka as towns on the east coast began frantically evacuating residents. Local media reported people had fled inland well in advance of any official government warnings.

Scientists last week predicted a magnitude 7.5 earthquake was possible in the region after the seismic slip on December 26 had piled dangerous levels of stress on to two vulnerable parts of the fault zone off the coast of Sumatra. "There's been seismic activity throughout this zone that has been ongoing for the last three months," Dale Grant of the US Geological Survey told the BBC. "This is an aftershock of the great quake which is something we see as the earth tries to settle itself."

But Mr Grant said he would not expect potential tsunami wave heights to be "anywhere near as large" as those that pounded coastlines on Boxing Day because the quake was less strong.

The December 26 event measured 9 on the Richter scale and left 1.5 million homeless across 11 countries.

The British Geological Survey said the earthquake occurred close to the epicentre of the Boxing Day quake along the same fault line.

"It occurred close to the breaking point - the epicentre - of the Boxing Day quake. It could be described as the largest aftershock of this event," said senior seismologist David Booth.

He said there was a "high probability" of a tsunami occurring "but because the earthquake is of such a shallow depth and is offshore, it would be on a much smaller scale than the Boxing Day disaster".

India said it had issued a tsunami warning as a precaution and put troops on alert along its coastline but said it had no evidence or reports of any deadly waves being generated.

In the Indian-controlled Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which have been rocked by 100 aftershocks since the December tsunami, local authorities issued a tsunami warning asking local people to vacate the coast. Scientists at Hyderabad's National Geophysical Research Institute interviewed on Indian television warned that if a tsunami was to be generated there was a three-hour window before the coast would be hit.

On Sunday, a quake measuring 6.4 came 40 minutes after midnight local time in Indonesia's eastern province of Maluku. A second aftershock, measuring 6.0 magnitude, came seven hours later. On Friday, a 5.9 quake hit near Banda Aceh.

Despite panic and evacuations, there was also complacency on the streets of the devastated areas that have become weary of aftershocks.

With no sign of a tsunami two hours after the tremors, many Indonesians roused from sleep returned to their beds.

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:1904, old post ID:27245

[Cicero]

They were lucky this time. The only tsunami I heard of was a 10cm one that hit the cocos islands causing no damage whatsoever.

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:1904, old post ID:27276

[Red Squirrel]

Must be freaky living in those areas, since with the aftermath it's almost an everyday thing to expect that something bad can happen.

Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:1904, old post ID:27324