News Compass

Update on Indonesian Earthquake: Tsunami Danger NOT over, says Experts

Other Breaking News

Indonesian Earthquake: Read here report from Jano Gibson for more

At a glance

-- Magnitude 8.7 quake struck 29th March 2005, at 11.09 pm, local time on 28th March,2005 ie 2.09 am (Melbourne time) of 29th March
-- Epicentre 10km below seabed 250km from Banda Aceh
-- Death toll unknown but may be in thousands on Nias
-- Two killed in Sri Lanka amid widespread panic in region
-- Indonesian president cancels state visit to Australia
-- Australia gives immediate relief package of $1m
-- No word on 'high profile' surfers at sea

A three-metre-high tsunami struck Simeuleu Island near Aceh minutes after the huge earthquake that struck off Indonesia's western coast, Kyoto and Agence France-Presse news agencies reported.

And the fate of around 5000 people living on isolated islands close to the epicentre of the massive earthquake remains unknown, as aftershocks continued to rattle Sumatra today.

According to an Aceh-based journalist who made contact with the island, the main hospital in Sinabang had been destroyed and could not be used.He said there were unconfirmed reports of 25 dead on the island.

Earlier today there were reports only of tsunamis running to 25cms high, leading experts to express their bafflement as to why last night's quake had not generated a larger tidal wave as in the Boxing Day disaster.

But there were later reports that an entire town which survived the Boxing Day quake - Aceh Singkil, on the south-western coast of Aceh province -had been levelled by the latest quake.

Click here to view a bigger map for the above in pdf format (need Acrobat Reader-click here to download)

March 29, 2005

Phil Cummins, of Geoscience Australia, said that although no major tsumani had yet been reported near the quake epicentre off Indonesia's Sumatra island, a big tidal surge could still be heading across the Indian Ocean towards Africa.

"I would say there is still potential for this to have generated a large tsunami," he said.

The earthquake off Indonesia could still produce a tsunami as big as the killer waves which left nearly 300,000 dead following a similar quake in December, seismologists in Australia said today.

Australia's bureau of meteorology said a 25cm tsunami had already hit Australia's remote Cocos Island and bigger tidal surges were expected to strike Australia's west coast.

Australia's bureau of meteorology initially reported that the tsunami measured just 10cm at Cocos Island, located in the deep waters of the Indian Ocean south of Sumatra, but later upgraded that to 25cm.

"That's fairly big for the deep ocean," Mr Cummins said of the wave which hit Cocos, adding that an alert had been issued for a one metre surge expected to hit the Western Australia coast.

Asked if the east coast of Africa could still be struck by a major tsunami from the latest quake, Mr Cummins said: "I would say it's still something we have to regard as a possibility.

"We've seen the thing at Cocos Island and that really does tell us we have to exercise caution."

Go to Latest Posting

Comments 0