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.
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.
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.