SUMATRA QUAKE REVISED TO 9.0 MAG

usgs ^

[Brian Mosely]

Magnitude 9.0 - OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
2004 December 26 00:58:50 UTC

Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver

A great earthquake occurred at 00:58:50 (UTC) on Sunday, December 26, 2004. The magnitude 9.0 event has been located OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

Magnitude		9.0
Date-Time	Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:50 (UTC) = Coordinated Universal Time Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 6:58:50 AM = local time at epicenter
Location	3.298°N, 95.779°E
Depth	10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region		OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
Distances	250 km (155 miles) SSE of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia 320 km (200 miles) W of Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia 1260 km (780 miles) SSW of BANGKOK, Thailand 1605 km (1000 miles) NW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
	Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 9.2 km (5.7 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters	Nst=157, Nph=157, Dmin=>999 km, Rmss=1.35 sec, Gp= 29°, M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source	USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
	Event ID	usslav
Felt Reports	At least 3,000 people killed in Sri Lanka, 2,300 in India, 2,000 in Indonesia, 289 in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia, 8 in Somalia and 2 in Bangladesh by tsunamis. Tsunamis also occurred on the coasts of Maldives and Cocos Island. At least 200 people killed, buildings destroyed or damaged in the Banda Aceh area, Sumatra. Felt widely in Sumatra. Also felt in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. This is now the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and is the largest since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake.

Today's shallow, thrust-type earthquake occurred off the west coast of northern Sumatra at the interface between the India and Burma plates. In this region, the Burma plate is characterized by significant strain partitioning due to oblique convergence of the India and Australia plates to the west and the Sunda and Eurasian plates to the east. Off the west coast of northern Sumatra, the India plate is moving in a northeastward direction at about 5 cm per year relative to the Burma plate. Preliminary locations of larger aftershocks following today's earthquake show that approximately 1000 km of the plate boundary slipped as a result of the earthquake. Aftershocks are distributed along much of the shallow plate boundary between northern Sumatra (approximately 3 degrees north) to near Andaman Island (at about 14 degrees north).

[dakine]

now what?

[cmsgop]

Whoa!

Prayers for all affected. Very Sad.

[Lazamataz]

Wow.

The destruction from this quake, even at sea, has been horrific.

Imagine if had occured on land!

[Just mythoughts]

Wow, wonder where, will shake next, or which volcano will blow???

[MaryFromMichigan]

9.0
Unfathomable.

[7.62 x 51mm]

Okay, so now what®?

[nuconvert]

WOW!

[prairiebreeze]

Yup, heard this on FoxNews about ten minutes ago. Just unbelievable.

[BIGLOOK]

Not to mention destruction of infrastructure (power,communications, sewers and fresh water); that quake will be felt for years. Hope the relief money isn't channeled through the UN.

[ProudVet77]

Mt St Helens, while not associated with these quakes, appears ready to go. Maybe all the gyrations caused by these quakes will set it off.

[dogbyte12]

Everybody now has the death toll above 11,000. This is going to rise. There are places where they haven't got to the bodies yet.

[DollyCali]

Hi Prairie.. is there a place you are finding info on Tsunami causalities & the further earthquakes. Several of the other threads have been hijacked unfortunately by religious undertones.

[Lazamataz]

"All the planet is vibrating" from the quake, said Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute. Speaking on SKY TG24 TV, Boschi said the quake even disturbed the Earth's rotation.

Wow.

Just.... wow.

[ElkGroveDan]

In this region, the Burma plate is characterized by significant strain partitioning due to oblique convergence of the India and Australia plates to the west and the Sunda and Eurasian plates to the east.

If John Kerry had won, he'd have used his relationships in the international community to bring the India and Australian plates together without such violence and destruction.

[U S Army EOD]

They claim it did shake or displace the entire Earth.

[nuconvert]

"Several of the other threads have been hijacked unfortunately by religious undertones."

What do you mean?

[Veto!]

Amazing damage far and wide.

Here are a couple of photos from Kollam in Kerala on the WEST side of India. More than 100 people were killed in Kollam.

The sea spills over

Woman carries child to safety

[nhoward14]

I predict at least 50,000+ dead by the time this is over with. I am also sharing the concerns of others now that Diego Garcia has not even been mentioned yet.

[Lazamataz]

I'm personally gonna avoid all politics on this thread. This seems like one of those "unite all people cuz we're humans" moments.