Massive 8.5 quake rocks Southeast Asia, triggers tidal waves

Jakarta, Dec. 26. (AP): An earthquake measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale rocked large parts of Southeast Asia early today.

The quake reportedly caused dozens of small buildings to collapse and triggered tidal waves in northwestern Indonesia, witnesses and officials said.

Nine people were killed as a result of the undersea quake in Indonesia's northwestern province of Aceh, where most of the damage was reported, el-Shinta radio station quoted a witness as saying.

Electricity and telephone networks in parts of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, were knocked out and dozens of shops and buildings collapsed, witnesses told el-Shinta.

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

The quake was also felt in neighboring Thailand and Malaysia. No major damage was reported in those two countries.

A tidal wave hit the Thai tourist resort island Phuket with waves as high as five meters 5 (16 feet) after the earthquake, Thailand's meteorology department said.

The U.S. Geological Survey's Web site recorded the magnitude 8.5 earthquake off the west coast of Northern Sumatra, 1,620 kilometers (1,000 miles) northwest of Jakarta. It was centered 40 kilometers (25 miles) below the seabed, the Web site reported. The survey initially reported the quake as 8.1.

Residents in the towns of Lhokseumawe and Banda Aceh in the northwestern province of Aceh reported tidal waves had triggered flooding in coastal regions.

An Associated Press reporter in Lhokseumawe said several houses had been damaged and that water levels on main streets in the town had reached one-meter (three-feet) high. At least one house had been swept away, he said.

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 came just three days after an 8.1 quake struck the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica, causing buildings to shake hundreds of miles away but no serious damage or injury.

Quakes reaching a magnitude 8 are very rare. A quake registering magnitude 8 rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that stuck off the coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.

A view of the damage caused by a tsunami at a beach in Phuket, about 535 miles south of Bangkok, Dec. 26, 2004. The wave was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean and it tossed cars around like toys on Thailand's southern tourist playground on Sunday and swept into luxury hotels on Phuket Island, killing at least 120 people in the region, officials said. (Reuters)

Asian Quakes' Tsunami Kill More Than 8,000

By LELY T. DJUHARI, Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia - The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years struck deep under the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Sumatra on Sunday, triggering tidal waves up to 20 feet high that obliterated villages and seaside resorts in six countries across southern and southeast Asia. About 8,000 people were killed in the devastation.

Tourists, fishermen, homes and cars were swept away by walls of water that rolled across the Bay of Bengal, unleashed by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake. The tsunami waves barreled nearly 3,000 miles across the ocean to Africa, where at least nine people were killed in Somalia.

In Sri Lanka, 1,000 miles west of the epicenter, more than 3,000 people were killed, the country's top police official said. At least 2,200 died in Indonesia, and more than 2,300 along the southern coasts of India. At least 289 were confirmed dead in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia and 2 in Bangladesh.

But officials expected the death toll to continue to rise, with hundreds reported missing and all communications cut off to towns in the Indonesian island of Sumatra that were closest to the epicenter. Hundreds of bodies were found on various beaches along India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, and more were expected to be washed in by the sea, officials said.

The rush of tsunami waves brought sudden disaster to people carrying out their daily activities on the ocean's edge: Sunbathers on the beaches of the Thai resort of Phuket were washed away; a group of 32 Indians — including 15 children — were killed while taking a ritual Hindu bath to mark the full moon day; fishing boats, with their owners clinging to their sides, were picked up by the waves and tossed away.

"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.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 8.9. Geophysicist Julie Martinez said it was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.

The epicenter was located 155 miles south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province on Sumatra, and six miles under the seabed of the Indian Ocean. There were at least a half-dozen powerful aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from almost 6 and 7.3.

On Sumatra, the quake destroyed dozens of buildings — but as elsewhere, it was the wall of water that followed that caused the most deaths and devastation.

Tidal waves leveled towns in Aceh province on Sumatra's northern tip. An Associated Press reporter saw bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded. More bodies littered the beaches.

Health ministry official Els Mangundap said 1,876 people had died across the region, including some 1,400 in the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh. Communications to the town had been cut.

Relatives went through lines of bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets, searching for dead loved ones. Aceh province has long been the center of a violent insurgency against the government.

The worst known death toll so far was in Sri Lanka, where a million people were displaced from wrecked villages. Some 20,000 soldiers were deployed in relief and rescue and to help police maintain law and order. Police chief, Chandra Fernando said at least 3,000 people were dead in areas under government control.

An AP photographer saw two dozen bodies along a four-mile stretch of beach, some of children entangled in the wire mesh used to barricade seaside homes. Other bodies were brought up from the beach, wrapped in sarongs and laid on the road, while rows of men and women lined the roads asking if anyone had seen their relatives.

"It is a huge tragedy," said Lalith Weerathunga, secretary to the Sri Lankan prime minister. "The death toll is going up all the time." He said the government did not know what was happening in areas of the northeast controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels.

The pro-rebel www.nitharsanam.com Web site reported about 1,500 bodies were brought from various parts of Sri Lanka's northeast to a hospital in Mullaithivu district, 170 miles northeast of the capital, Colombo.

About 170 children at an orphanage were feared dead after tidal waves pounded it in Mullaithivu, the Web site said.

No independent confirmation of the report was available, but TamilNet — another pro-rebel Web site — said some guerrilla territory was badly hit. "Many parts ... are still inaccessible and it was difficult to provide damage estimates or death tolls there," it said.

In India, beaches were turned into virtual open-air mortuaries, with bodies of people caught in the tidal wave being washed ashore.

"I was shocked to see innumerable fishing boats flying on the shoulder of the waves, going back and forth into the sea, as if made of paper," said P. Ramanamurthy, 40, who lives in Kakinada, a town in Andra Pradesh state.

The huge waves struck around breakfast time on the beaches of Thailand's beach resorts — probably Asia's most popular holiday destination at this time of year, particularly for Europeans fleeing the winter cold — wiping out bungalows, boats and cars, sweeping away sunbathers and snorkelers, witnesses said.

"Initially we just heard a bang, a really loud bang," Gerrard Donnelly of Britain, a guest at Phuket island's Holiday Inn, told Britain's Sky News. "We initially thought it was a terrorist attack, then the wave came and we just kept running upstairs to get on as high ground as we could."

"People that were snorkeling were dragged along the coral and washed up on the beach, and people that were sunbathing got washed into the sea," said Simon Clark, 29, a photographer from London vacationing on Ngai island.

On Phuket, Somboon Wangnaitham, deputy director of the Wachira Hospital, said one of the worst hit areas was the populous Patong beach, where at least 32 people died and 500 were injured.

Another survivor on Phuket was Natalia Moyano, 22, of Sydney, Australia, who was being treated for torn ligaments.

"The water kept rising. It was very slow at first, then all of a sudden, it went right up," Moyano said. "At first I didn't think there was any danger, but when I realized the water kept rising so quickly, I tried to jump over a fence, but it broke."

On Phi Phi island — where "The Beach" starring Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed — 200 bungalows at two resorts were swept out to sea.

"I am afraid that there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea and also my staff," said Chan Marongtaechar, owner of the PP Princess Resort and PP Charlie Beach Resort.

Some 200 seriously injured people, most of them foreigners, were evacuated by helicopter from the island after dark, said Maj. Gen. Winai Nilasri of the Border Patrol Police. He said the island, which was crammed with tourist facilities, was without electricity.

There was no tsunami threat for western North America or Hawaii, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Scientists said the catastrophic death toll across the region might have been reduced if India and Sri Lanka had been part of an international warning system designed to advise coastal communities that a potentially killer wave was approaching. The system relies on a network of earthquake seismic sensors and tidal gauges attached to buoys in the oceans.

The Indonesian quake struck just three days after an 8.1 quake struck the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica, causing buildings to shake hundreds of miles away but no serious damage or injury.

Quakes reaching a magnitude 8 are very rare. A quake registering magnitude 8 rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that struck off the coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.

The world's biggest earthquake in 40 years hit southern Asia on December 26, 2004, unleashing a tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India, drowning thousands and swamping tourist isles in Thailand and the Maldives. (Reuters Graphic)

Residents walk through the trail of destruction along the coastal railway line in the southern Sri Lankan town of Lunawa after tsunami tidal waves lashed more than half of Sri Lanka's coastline.(AFP/Sena Vidangama)

A general view of the scene at the Marina beach in Madras after tidal waves hit the region. Disaster struck just after dawn as a huge earthquake in Indonesia sent tsunamis crashing westwards.(AFP/Str)

A car floating after tidal waves hit the region of Madras. From hardest-hit Sri Lanka to resort islands in Thailand, holidaymakers from Britain described the destruction caused when tidal waves triggered by a powerful earthquake off Indonesia hit their resorts, in messages to radio, television stations and news agencies back home.(AFP/Podhigai TV via LCI)

A video image shows foreign tourists (C) as they stretcher an injured person along a destroyed beach on Phi Phi island, Thailand December 26, 2004, following a large earthquake. The world's biggest earthquake in 40 years hit south Asia on Sunday, unleashing a tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India and swamped tourist isles in Thailand and the Maldives, killing more than 6,300 people.A wall of water up to 10 metres (30 feet) high triggered by the 8.9 magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra caused death, chaos and devastation. REUTERS/Reuters TV BEST AVAILABLE QUALITY

Foreign tourists walk past tsunami-damaged houses in Phi Phi island in Krabi province, Thailand. Tsunamis hit Sri Lanka; similar scenes were played out on the western coast of Thailand, as well as in Myanmar, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and the Maldives, devastating some of Asia's most popular tourist spots.(AFP/ITV)

Asian Quake, Tsunami Death Toll Approaches 9,500

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