Posted on 03/29/2005 7:05:45 AM PST by dead
A three-metre-high tsunami struck Simeuleu Island near Aceh minutes after the huge earthquake that struck off Indonesia's western coast, Kyoto and Agence France-Presse news agencies reported.
And the fate of around 5000 people living on the isolated Banyak islands close to the epicentre of the massive earthquake remains unknown, as aftershocks continued to rattle Sumatra today.
``We are extremely concerned about the fate of 5000 people living in the Banyaks island group. We've had absolutely no news from these islands," Jude Barrand, communications officer for international aid agency SurfAid, told smh.com.au.
"There has been no contact and they were very close to the epicentre of the earthquake.''
A military commander in Indonesia's Aceh Province said the three-metre tsunami had caused extensive damage on Simeuleu Island.
According to an Aceh-based journalist who made contact with the island, the main hospital in Sinabang had been destroyed and could not be used. He said there were unconfirmed reports of 25 dead on the island.
Earlier today there were reports only of tsunamis running to 25cms high, leading experts to express their bafflement as to why last night's quake had not generated a larger tidal wave as in the Boxing Day disaster.
But there were later reports that an entire town which survived the Boxing Day quake - Aceh Singkil, on the south-western coast of Aceh province -had been levelled by the latest quake.
More than 10,000 people fled their homes there, Antara news agency reported. But there were no details of any casualties.
Endang Suwaraya, the military commander in the western Indonesian province of Aceh, close to the epicentre of the magnitude 8.7 quake, said he had received reports that Sinabang's port and airport were damaged.
The earthquake is believed to have killed between 1000 and 2000 people on the popular surfing island Nias, the country's Vice President Jusuf Kalla said today.
Already reeling from fatalities caused by the Boxing Day disaster, the 600,000-strong island found itself near the epicentre of the quake, which struck at 11.15pm local time (2.15am today AEST).
Jossi Syahrial, who manages SurfAid's Sumatra headquarters in Pedang said the latest quake felt much stronger than the Boxing Day monster.
"It's stronger because the epicentre is closer. The first time was in Aceh area, now the epicentre has moved to Nias. It definitely felt stronger,'' she said.
She said everyone feared another tsunami and started "start leaving the house and screaming, just paranoid, so traumatic''.
Fatheena Faleel, who fled her home with her three children in Banda Aceh after viewing the warning on television, said: "It was like reliving the same horror of three months ago."
Amid confusion over the number of people killed in Nias, with reports of people buried under collapsed buildings, Mr Kalla told El Shinta news radio: "Roughly it is expected between 1000 and 2000 died."
But earlier, in the town of Gunungsitoli, Agus Mendrofa, the island's deputy district head said at least 296 people had died and about 70 per cent of buildings had collapsed in the market district.
SurfAid - which is helping Nias recover from the Boxing Day tsunami - said "minimal deaths" had so far been reported there, though the island had suffered a lot of structural damage.
Two people were reportedly killed in eastern Sri Lanka after the quake struck as tens of thousands of panic-stricken people fled for higher ground following a government-issued tsunami alert.
The TamilNet website said a boy was killed in an accident involving a truck as people fled coastal areas around Batticaloa and a woman died in Kalmunai, also in Sri Lanka's east, as she sought higher ground.
Sri Lanka's embassy in Washington received a warning call from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii just minutes after the Indonesian earthquake struck about 2.15am AEST.
The embassy said the quake was described as an after-shock to the December 26 temblor that launched a deadly tsunami which killed at least 31,000 in Sri Lanka and tens of thousands more on Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal coasts.
The embassy immediately contacted civilian and military authorities in Sri Lanka.
Deputy Meteorology Director P M Jayatilake said Japan's Meteorological Agency also alerted Colombo.
Local police then warned people to evacuate coastal areas.
"We can't take chances given what happened just three months ago,"a senior official said. "Better be safe than sorry."
As Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called off a state visit to Australia, the Australian government announced it would provide an immediate assistance package of $1 million to help with relief efforts.
"We stand ready to provide further assistance if requested,'' the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
DFAT is unable to ascertain whether any Australians are among the reported casualties on Nias Island.
And an Australian surfing tour company has been unable to contact one of its charter boats carrying "high profile surfers" in waters near Nias, though World Safaris' Shaun Levings said he held no fears for their safety as they on the ocean.
Before reports of the Simeuleu Island tsunami damage, Japan had kept its tsunami warning in place for nations around the Indian Ocean, saying its tidal gauges in the region had detected a 25cm tsunami off Sri Lanka and a smaller one off the Maldives.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said a 25cm tsunami hit Australia's remote Cocos Island.
In Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province hardest hit on December 26, the quake cut electricity and thousands of people poured into the streets, most getting into vehicles to flee low-lying areas.
The panic gripped at least one camp in Banda Aceh where tsunami survivors have been living. An Associated Press photographer described thousands of people fleeing their tents at the camp known as TVRI.
Police with megaphones walked up and down the road, telling people not to panic and to return to their tents.
In Sri Lanka, warning sirens blared along the island nation's east coast and President Chandrika Kumaratunga urged people to evacuate immediately to higher ground.
Some people sought refuge in temples and churches while others simply stood on streets several kilometres away from the ocean terrified another tsunami would strike.
The quake was felt as far away as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, more than 700km from the epicentre.
In Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur and Penang, fire alarms sent panicked residents fleeing their apartments and hotels.
In Singapore, residents of high-rise apartments felt the buildings sway.
Slight tremors were reported in the Thai capital of Bangkok, and officials issued a tsunami warning for residents in the country's south, where more than 3,000 died in December.
Except for Nias, there were no immediate reports of any casualties or major damage.
In New York, the United Nations said it hoped to have helicopters out early today to survey the damage from the earthquake.
Agencies
Bttt...
Two weeks ago an expert warned Sumatra to expect another quake. Yesterday he was proved right. Richard Macey and Deborah Smith report.
It was 2.33am when Mark Leonard's mobile phone rang. The seismologist with Geoscience Australia was woken by a computer-generated message announcing that the west coast of Sumatra had been rocked by another massive earthquake, bringing back horrific memories of the Boxing Day tsunami.
A dismayed Dr Leonard studied the details relayed from automated seismology stations around the country.
The culprit, just as it had been on December 26, was the Indo-Australian tectonic plate that has been steadily forcing its way north at up to seven centimetres a year, for centuries. Where it collides with its neighbouring Eurasian plate, on which the island of Sumatra rides, the Indo-Australian plate is driven deep into the Earth's mantle.
Tremendous forces build up where the opposing plates jam together. The inevitable result is that sooner or later one section, unable to contain the mounting stress, must slip, triggering a powerful earthquake. It happened in one section of this region, known as the Sunda trench, off Sumatra's south coast in 1833. Twenty-eight years later, in 1861, it slipped again, just to the north. Then there was a lull until, on Boxing Day last year, yet another section of the Sunda trench ruptured near the northern tip of Sumatra, creating the tsunami that claimed almost 300,000 lives.
Two weeks ago, John McCloskey, of the University of Ulster, went public with his prediction that the region was a prime target for another major quake - and soon. People tended to think lightning didn't strike twice in the same place, he told the Herald. "But with earthquakes it's exactly the opposite."
His team had calculated that the Boxing Day earthquake had increased stresses in the adjacent area of the Sunda trench, which had not experienced a quake since 1861. At 2.09 yesterday morning, Sydney time, the inevitable happened. The plates ruptured, almost exactly where Professor McCloskey had predicted, triggering a massive 8.7 magnitude earthquake, the world's eighth biggest since 1900.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, based in Hawaii, was soon beaming out alerts, advising the "evacuation of coasts within 1000 kilometres of the epicentre". Thousands of people were evacuated in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
"At 4am [Sydney time] we were very concerned there would be another tsunami," Dr Leonard said. But as the hours passed there were no reports of coast beyond Sumatra being swamped.
At 4.35am tidal gauges on the Cocos Islands off Western Australian merely noted a wave 25 centimetres high, from peak to trough, passing harmlessly by. Several more waves followed in the next hour. At 8.30am the sea level at Hillarys, about 30 kilometres north of Fremantle, rose from 10 to 20 centimetres, and then settled back.
About the same time, said Dr Leonard, observers in the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean, were reporting that the sea level had risen just 20 to 40 centimetres. Late yesterday, however, news did emerge of a three-metre tsunami wreaking havoc of Simeulue. Nevertheless, as Dr Leonard studied the data, he gradually realised this was no repeat of the Boxing Day calamity, which killed 300,000 people across 11 Indian Ocean nations.
Although the quake had registered 8.7, and was still "a very, very big earthquake" by any measure, it was on the order of eight to 10 times weaker than the magnitude 9 quake that triggered the December 26 tsunami. While the numbers appear close, the force of earthquakes is measured on an exponential scale. The area of crust that shifted was also much smaller - about 50 kilometres wide and 550 kilometres long - compared with the slab of earth 1000 by 250 kilometres that slipped last year. The plate's sideway slip probably averaged only two or three metres, a quarter of the average shift in the Boxing Day rupture.
Last year's quake, noted Dr Leonard, happened on a section of faultline running north to south. The result was a tsunami that rolled out across the Indian Ocean, heading due west, slamming into Sri Lanka, India and finally Africa. The faultline that shifted yesterday runs from the north-west to the south-east, parallel with Sumatra's coast. This time the tsunami headed south-west, out into a largely empty ocean. "This quake was probably due to happen sometime in the next decade," said Mr Leonard, confessing, "I was not expecting another one so soon." He speculated the Boxing Day event had "probably nudged it forward ... it must have been ready to go".
The seismologist declined to punt on what would happen next, saying he did not believe earthquakes could be predicted. "I would not be surprised if there is another 9 magnitude quake off south-western Java ... some time in the next couple of centuries."
Professor McCloskey was not so cautious. "Unfortunately, I'm not at all surprised by today's news," he told ABC radio. He said the next stretch of Sumatra's undersea Sunda trench would now be under additional stress from yesterday's quake. It was too early to say whether this would trigger another quake in the region that has not ruptured since 1833.
He also predicted this quake could increase stress on a faultline running down the centre of Sumatra and under the city of Banda Aceh, already destabilised by the Boxing Day quake.
Ping.
Cheap b@stards. /sarcasm
Semper Fi
Gotta love the Aussies.
Maybe. Aren't these the same guys who told us we weren't welcome last time?...
".... caused by the Boxing Day disaster"
I've never heard the last disaster referred to as the Boxing Day disaster. I had heard it referred to as the Christmas Day disaster which I am not sure if was exactly factual for any region of the globe. Would have to admit that Boxing Day sounds more PC.
The earthquake happened on Boxing Day where it happened, but it was still Christmas in the US.
I wonder how much
of the billions in relief
got washed back to sea . . .
Opening check book, sending vast amounts of money for helping to gas up the UN choppers, feeling much better.
Oh yeah, I don't know if it was that particular country but I know what you're talking about. Hell, if they don't want help, fine; makes my job easier.
Maybe I've been out of the loop, I'de just never heard it referred to as the Boxing Day disaster.
Looks like there are going to still be a lot of people in need...
Probably because Boxing Day doesn't mean anything in the US. This article is from Australia.
You've been out of the loop. Outside of the US, this is what most people who speak English call it, cause it happened on Boxing day. The Boxing Day name evolved up after we in the US were out of the British Empire, I believe.
Wow! I actually scooped this last night on the quake thread. Nobody believed me at the time.
Perhaps finding out what Boxing Day is might lead to insight rather than jumping to conclusions? In the Commonwealth it is the day after Christmas when presents are exchanged, rather than on Christmas Day. An attempt to keep Christmas Holy, unlike the commercialism that has evolved here.
I thought Boxing Day was a British thing, not something recognized in "the whole world."
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