Earthquake in Indonesia causes massive Tidal Waves

BBC News ^

[Barte45]

Huge casualties are being reported following tidal waves and earth tremors in countries across southern and eastern Asia.

[naturalman1975]

I can't get accurate information and that's worrying me just a bit. When I left the Navy, I agreed to be part of an Australian government program to help provide emergency aid (basically support, logistics advice etc) in the event of a major disaster in the Pacific or South East Asia. We've been told to get ready to go if needed, but they can't yet tell us if we're likely to have to go.

I'm ready if needed - but if I could get some decent information, it'd help me work out whether to cancel family activities planned between now and the New Year.

[sukhoi-30mki]

Indian naval & air force facilities have been put on maximum alert .They may be deployed to SriLanka(where damage has been severe) & possibly the Maldives,in addition to helping relief efforts in the southern states affected.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

The ring of fire has been very active. Hopefully soon it will be the ring of Holy Ghost fire that they talk about, as Buddhism and Islam continue to collapse under the pressure of Christ's coming Kingdom.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This is a recent upadate, it that helps:

___________________________

Tidal Waves Kill More Than 700 in Asia

 

Dec 26, 3:29 AM (ET)

By LELY T. DJUHARI

(AP) People walk through debris of their houses destroyed in tidal waves on the coastal areas in...
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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years rocked northern Indonesia on Sunday and launched tidal waves that swamped villages and seaside resorts across Asia, killing more than 700 people in five countries.

Some 300 were reported killed in Sri Lanka, 286 in India, 94 in Indonesia, 61 in Thailand and seven in Malaysia. Hundreds were reported missing, and the death toll was expected to rise.

The U.S. Geological Survey said a magnitude-8.9 quake - one capable of massive damage - struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra at 8 a.m. Sunday. The USGS revised the quake's size upward from magnitude-8.5.

Soon after it hit, immense waves or tsunamis crashed into several countries, and aftershocks in the magnitude-7 range were seen, the USGS said, raising the possibility of a catastrophic regional death toll.

(AP) A seismograph reading from this morning's 8.5 earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia, is seen on a computer...
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Waves crashed into coastal villages over a wide area of Sri Lanka - some 1,000 miles west of the quake's epicenter - killing some 300 people and displacing thousands of others, said military spokesman Brig. Daya Ratnayake.

Parts of the northeastern districts of Muttur and Trincomalee were inundated by waves as high as 20 feet, said D. Rodrigo, a Muttur district official.

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

At least 150 were recovered around the coastal town of Cuddalore, said deputy Superintendent of police K. Panniselvan. Some 100 others were found around Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu, said Police Chief R. Nataraj. Thirty-six were killed in neighboring Andhra Pradesh, said state Chief Minister Y. Rajashekhar Reddy.

Officials at the USGS, based in Golden, Colo., blamed the tidal waves on the quake.

(AP) A scientist points to a seismograph reading from this morning's 8.5 earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia,...
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"This is not unusual occurrence for an earthquake this size and where it's located," said geophysicist Julie Martinez.

Martinez said the quake was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 quake hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.

At least 94 people were killed in Indonesia's Aceh province, hospital and local officials said.

Bireun district head Mustofa Glanggang told The Associated Press that 50 people were killed in Bireun district, and 35 bodies were brought to Cut Meutia Hospital in the northern city of Lhokseumawe, an official there said. Nine others were killed in the provincial capital Banda Aceh, witnesses told a local radio station.

Communications were down in several coastal towns facing the epicenter of the undersea quake off the western coast of Aceh, raising fears of widespread and as yet unreported damage in the region.

"The ground was shaking for a long time," resident Yayan Zamzani told Jakarta's el-Shinta radio station. "It must be the strongest earthquake in the last 15 years."

Sixty-one people died and many were missing in popular southern Thailand resorts, the Narenthorn Center of the Public Health Ministry reported. The center also reported that people were swept away in Phuket by a tsunami with waves surging as high as 16 feet.

The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said a powerful earthquake jolted a wide area of that country early Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. The quake was reported to be a magnitude-7.3.

Police in Malaysia said seven people were killed in tidal waves.

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 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 stuck off the coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.

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Associated Press writer Dilip Ganguly contributed to this report from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

[The Raven]

>>Any word on whether or not this is Bush's fault?

Read Crighton's new book

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

A scientist points to a seismograph reading from this morning's 8.5 earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia, Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004, at the Meteorology and Geophysical Agency in Jakarta, Indonesia. An extremely powerful earthquake rocked parts of Asia Sunday, sparking potent aftershocks and massive waves that swamped villages and seaside resorts in five countries, killing at least 300 people in Sri Lanka and 94 Indonesia. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Numbers more than 700 now.

[naturalman1975]

Thanks for that - does give me a bit more information.

Aceh is looking the most likely place for us to go.

The thing about all this is how limited the information is coming out of such areas. 8.9 just sounds so big, and the casualty numbers seem relatively small. Makes me wonder how accurate they are, and how much information is getting out of such places.

8.9 makes me think we'll go.

I wish I knew a bit more about quakes - it'd help me work out if that 94 dead figure is Aceh is even feasibly accurate.

[backhoe]

I can't get accurate information and that's worrying me just a bit. When I left the Navy, I agreed to be part of an Australian government program to help provide emergency aid (basically support, logistics advice etc) in the event of a major disaster in the Pacific or South East Asia. We've been told to get ready to go if needed, but they can't yet tell us if we're likely to have to go. I'm ready if needed - but if I could get some decent information, it'd help me work out whether to cancel family activities planned between now and the New Year.

I hear you, and wish I could provide more than newsfeeds.

I see "500 dead, more missing," and naturally think that such early reports must be the tip of the iceberg, but it's impossible to say with any degree of accuracy. It's just too soon to tell.

[mfccinsd]

Responded via freepmail.

Short answer, I'd guess the numbers are going to rise. And probably by a lot between all the countries hit by quakes or tsunamis.

[sukhoi-30mki]

Latest newsreports say the toll in Sri Lanka is over a thousand & over 350 in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh.The reports about Indonesia(Aceh & Sumatra) still seem unclear.

[backhoe]

Latest newsreports say the toll in Sri Lanka is over a thousand

Awfully sorry to hear that, but I'm not surprised- early reports of disasters are by nature inaccurate.

[mfccinsd]

And the FNC website saying that over 500,000 displaced in Sri Lanka...which doesn't bode well for the toll in human life increasing...there or anywhere else hit.

[sukhoi-30mki]

What I saw on BBC & a few Indian channels say over a million are affected in Sri Lanka.The Govt has clamped a state of emergency & fully mobilised their military & para-military agencies & have also appealed for International help.The Indian navy is sending around 5 ships with emergency supplies & lifeboats to Trincomalee & other ports in SL.

[mfccinsd]

Yeah...scary it doubled in under two hours (it was about 3 am when it seems like they all started saying a million impacted/displaced just in SL)...I hate to know how numbers will rise as the next few days pass. Seems like the fact that they keep stressing how many areas they haven't been able to access, communicate with or assess means those numbers (from SL and everywhere else) surely must be VERY preliminary?

[sukhoi-30mki]

Hard to say for sure.South India,Sri Lanka & Indonesia in general have pretty decent communication facilities & relief mechanisms when compared to other parts of India or Asia.The problem is lots of communication lines are down & people are in grave fear of aftershocks-hence rescue efforts are not at the pace they should be.It will take close to 60-72 hours to get a decent estimate of the exact numbers.

[CindyDawg]

I thought so. There was a thread about a large explosion and then nothing.

[Barte45]

Reports are now that 10,000 are dead. CNN was the last major news channel to report anything about this catastrophe on its online website.

[CindyDawg]

Horrible. I read that it wasn't that people choose to stay but many didn't have time to get out or know it was coming.

[Barte45]

To update everything. The earthquake had a magnitude of 9.0 on the richter. It was the biggest to hit in the last 40 years. More than 12,000 people have now died. Here's the casualties by country:

Sri Lanka: 4500

Indonesia: 4400

India: 3200

Thailand: 380

Malaysia: 42

Maldives: 32

Bangladesh: 2

As for relief the European Union has already pledged 3 million euros for rescue services. The epicenter of the quake is the rattled region of Banda Aceh in Indonesia. They experienced an earthquake last month which killed 29. The earthquake took place just below the surface of the ocean which caused the massive tsunamis that rocked the entire region.