Quake strikes off Indonesia coast
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/03/28/indonesia.quake/index.html
Quake strikes off Indonesia coast
Monday, March 28, 2005 Posted: 1804 GMT (0204 HKT)
(CNN) — U.S. officials were urging
residents to evacuate coastal regions in the Indian Ocean after a
earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.2 struck off the coast of
Indonesia Monday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration urged residents within 1,000 kilometers of the epicenter
to evacuate coastal regions.
The quake was centered on the same
fault line where a December 26 earthquake launched a tsunami that
killed at least 175,000 people.
The director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said scientists there feared another tsunami might hit the area.
Charles
McCreary said he could not be certain that the quake, which was 203
kilometers (126 miles) from Sibolga on Sumatra Island, would cause a
tsunami.
Experts agreed the quake was massive.
"This
earthquake has the potential to generate a widely destructive tsunami
in the ocean or seas near the earthquake," NOAA said in a statement on
its Web site. "Authorities in those regions should be aware of this
possibility and take immediate action."
Asked whether evacuations are taking place, USGS spokesman Don Blakeman said, "I certainly hope so."
Thailand
issued a warning that the quake could bring a tsunami to its southern
provinces. The warning, which was carried on national television,
cautioned people in the six provinces to be careful and vigilant, but
did not order evacuations.
USGS spokesman Doug Blake said there had been no reports of tsunami activity nearly 90 minutes after the quake struck.
"We’re still waiting for any kind of reports," he said.
"At
this point in time we don’t know what type of fault occurred … and
that is critical information we just don’t have yet," he said. "It is
in the aftershock zone of the December 26 quake. It’s a little bit
south, but it’s on the same fault."
The quake occurred at 11:09 a.m. ET (1609 GMT), and is considered a "great" earthquake, the largest of seven grades.
The grades are very minor, minor, light, moderate, strong, major and great.
Tsunamis
are distinguished from normal coastal surf by their great length and
speed. A single wave in a tsunami series might be 160 kilometers (100
miles) long and race across the ocean at 960 kph (600 mph).
When
it approaches a coastline, the wave slows dramatically, but it also
rises to great heights because the enormous volume of water piles up in
shallow coastal bays.
The December 26 quake, measured at
magnitude 9, triggered a massive tsunami that devastated Asian and
African coastlines in nearly a dozen nations.
