Magnitude 9.0 Earthquake - OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA

USGS Earthquake Hazards ^ | 2004 December 26 00:58:55 UTC

[bd476]

Magnitude 8.1 - OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
2004 December 26 00:58:55 UTC

Preliminary Earthquake Report
West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center/NOAA/NWS

A great earthquake occurred at 00:58:55 (UTC) on Sunday, December 26, 2004. The magnitude 8.1 event has been located OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

Magnitude	8.1
Date-Time	Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:55 (UTC) = Coordinated Universal Time Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 6:58:55 AM = local time at epicenter
Location	3.400°N, 95.700°E
Depth	40 km (24.9 miles) set by location program
Region	OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
Distances	235 km (145 miles) S of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia 330 km (205 miles) W of Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia 1620 km (1000 miles) NW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia 3405 km (2120 miles) SE of NEW DELHI, Delhi, India
Location Uncertainty	Error estimate not available
Parameters	Nst=020, Nph=020, Dmin=>999 km, Rmss=0.98 sec, Gp=101°, M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=1
Source	West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center/NOAA/NWS
Event ID	at00000264

Location Maps: 10-degree NEIC Maps Did you feel it? Report shaking and damage at your location. You can also view a map displaying accumulated data from your report and others. Historical Moment Tensor Solutions Seismic Hazard Map Historical Seismicity Theoretical P-Wave Travel Times Magnitude 7 and Greater Earthquakes This Year TsunamiBulletin Archive of newsworthy events

[commonguymd]

A massive earthquake has rocked the northern part of Indonesia's Sumatra Island, causing dozens of buildings to collapse and triggering large waves along the northern coast, witnesses and officials say.

The US Geological Survey's website recorded a magnitude 8.1 earthquake off the west coast of Northern Sumatra, 1,620km northwest of Jakarta. It was centered 40km below the seabed, the US Geological Survey's website reported.

A local seismologist put the quake at 6.4. The cause of the discrepancy between the two figures was not clear.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Residents in the towns of Lhokseumawe and Banda Aceh in the northwestern province of Aceh reported large waves had hit coastal regions. An Associated Press reported in Lhokseumawe several houses had been damaged. At least one had been swept away, he said.

In the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, dozens of shops and buildings collapsed, witnesses told el-Shinta radio station.

"The ground was shaking for a long time," Yayan Zamzani told the station. "It must be the strongest earthquake in the last 15 years."

Metro TV reported that the quake had knocked out electricity and telephone networks in parts of Banda Aceh.

Indonesia, a country of 17,000 islands, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the margins of tectonic plates that make up the so-called the "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific Ocean basin.

The quake was felt as far away as the Thai capital, Bangkok.

[Strategerist]

A local seismologist put the quake at 6.4. The cause of the discrepancy between the two figures was not clear

This actually seems to be a routine occurance around the world, especially in the third world, for large quakes; the country it occurs in puts out this really low mag estimate and NEIC is much higher (and NEIC turns out to be right 100% of the time.)

Basically, what happens is that these really large quakes "saturate" or "peg" the local seismographs; if you have them set to be able to pick up and catalog your average quake a really huge one will basically cause the "pen" as it were to go off the side of the chart.

The other issue is the complexity in calculating the magnitude of large quakes. There are 3-4 different scales (Ms, Mw, etc....interestingly enough, the "Richter" scale was only designed for Southern California, and is no longer used anywhere, but the media keeps using the Richter term). You could see NEIC revise the estimate several times in the next few days. And you could see scientific papers arguing over the actual magnitude months from now.

[Strategerist]

Looks like there indeed was a Tsunami.

If I lived some place like Madras, India I'd start heading for higher ground about now.

I'm unaware of any Indian Ocean tsunami warning agencies. Will look for one now.

[commonguymd]

Thanks for the information!

[ForGod'sSake]

So, how far away was this from TOBA?

FGS

[BIGLOOK]

Mauna Loa is inflating and has been for a while. Those little shocks you mention are many on any given day here; not even noticeable. But a local friend of mine pointed out that Mauna Loa "looks fat" and it does.

We sit on a hot spot in the middle of the Pacific plate. Follow the map of the islands and the history of eruptions and you'll detect a pattern of movement.

Whether the latest big shocks in the indicate westward movement is conjecture only on my part. Could be anything out there along the trenches. But eventually the effect will spread.

[auggy]

" don't know when I'll start to see answers to such prayers. But I believe I will in my lifetime. So this was a bit startling to read."

I think today, your prayers are being answered.

[VNam68]

Get the surf boards out!!!

[Strategerist]

1) Anyone believing natural disasters are specific punishments for given localities is an idiot.

2) Anyone actively praying for that sort of thing is deranged.

[commonguymd]

9 casualties reported by CNN due to flash flood so far.

Hope nobody really prays for this kind of thing.

[Chu Gary]

"If they called it anything but "great" it would be more fitting. Monstrous, Extra large... something like that. :)"

How about Super Sized?

[Strategerist]

If the aftershock locations are in fact accurate on NEIC the sequeance of 6.0 quakes in the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal are really remarkably distant from the source of the quake....

Though of course the length of fault that lets go in an 8.5 is a lot longer than a single point of an epicenter.

[Quix]

As I prayed such, I also asked God to spare and draw to Him in a Saving relationship with Jesus Christ any and all who had any heart to seek God at all. To spare lives where there was any shred of a chance they would establish a relationship with Him. And to remove all those who were eternally and terminally hostile to Him.

I see where a certain poster has gong to personal assaults in hostility to any perspective such as ours. That's sad. Evidently he doesn't believe The Bible. God often used dramatic natural events to signal His displeasure.

While it rains on the just and the unjust--sometimes God withholds rain from the rebellious and gives it only in response to prayer by the righteous--righteous in Jesus' Blood, of course, since none of us have any of our own.

Certainly the Old Testament is full of such examples. And, Calvary demonstrated yet another case. Revelation and other prophetic books have plenty of prophecies yet to be fulfilled involving such dynamics, factors, incidents, methodologies of God getting man's attention.

And, in Asia and many parts of the world, simple people while being far too given to superstition--also have a much greater and healthier respect and sensitivity for God speaking through such phenomena.

Sometimes He uses 'foolish' things to confound the wise-in-their-own-eyes.

Thanks for your kind comment.

[ForGod'sSake]

1) Anyone believing natural disasters are specific punishments for given localities is an idiot.

I don't generally insert myself into other folk's business, but I would submit anyone completely discounting such a possibility has not read all the literature on the subject.

2) Anyone actively praying for that sort of thing is deranged.

Beats sending young men into battle, eh?

FGS

[Quix]

BTW, You could be quite right. I suspect it is NOT an accident that it was this close to the celebration of His birth AND so close to a Moslem nation.

[Quix]

You could be right.

I dare not presume so at this point. IF AND WHEN it happens routinely and the masses in the impacted nation respond to it as GOD DOING HIS THING--THEN I'll consider those prayers answered.

PLEASE See my post above about praying regarding such potentials--the 2nd one about that issue.

[cyborg]

You'd better be careful!

[Quix]

1) You have insufficient training as far as I know to judge whether I'm deranged, or not.

2) You have insufficient information to judge whether I'm deranged or not.

3) I'll thank you to afford me the respect required when posting on this forum and refrain from personhood assaults. I mostly don't care in many respects. But you jokers have a field day with about anyone who is markedly different in philosophy than you are. And, guess what--you aren't god--anywhere and certainly not on this forum. You are still expected to abide by the rules of this forum and I strongly encourage you to do so.

[Quix]

REFRESHING it is to read someone well read on the topic.

THANKS TONS.

ACTUALLY, I'm very strongly convinced; fiercely convinced that we shall see FAR MORE SUCH IN OUR LIFETIME than in all the rest of the Biblical eras combined.

Buckle seatbelts, indeed.

Thanks much.

[Strategerist]

It's endlessly amusing to see the repeated lies of apocalyptikooks in promoting their supposedly "Religious" agenda. Isn't lying a sin?

But review apocalpytikook posts on FR, any number of apocalyptikook websites, and you'll repeatedly see lies about the number of large earthquakeas around the world increasing, etc.

And I'm sorry, the world today doesn't seem to bear much resemblance to the world of the Old Testament.

I don't see the slightest pattern of any disasters...hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, etc...affecting the "unjust" any more than the "just" by any conceivable definition of "unjust."

This subduction zone was off Sumatra and Java and producing massive earthquakes long before human beings moved to Indonesia...much less converted to Islam.

Earthquakes seem to occur on plate boundaries, oddly enough, not under evildoers.

And if you review the list of mag 7+ quakes in Indonesia this year up until this last one, you'll see that actually most of them have managed to be centered in or near the few areas of Indonesia that have majority Christian populations.