Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Indonesia was hit by a massive 8.9 earthquake off the western most Aceh province.
People tweeted tremors were felt in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and as far west as India. High-rise apartments and offices on Malaysia’s west coast shook for at least a minute.
A tsunami warning has been issued. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami watch was in effect for the densely populated nations of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the powerful quake was centered 20 miles (33 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor around 308 miles (495 kilometers) from Aceh’s provincial capital.
In the city of Banda Aceh, terrified residents screamed as they jumped into cars and the backs of motorcycles, clogging streets as they fled to high ground.
There were also reports of the water level dropping in the Thai resort of Phuket – a sign that the sea is drawing back in preparation to launch an enormous wave.
Buildings shook for four minutes and there were reports of people jumping from windows in a desperate attempt to escape.
On Dec. 26, 2004, a giant 9.1-magnitude quake off Indonesia triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people.
My God that’s a big earthquake. These countries are so heavily populated today. Indonesia has 230 million and India is 1.2 billion. Now when a quake or a tsunami hits, the loss of life can be enormous.
After the 2004 earthquake, I thought the region put a tsunami warning system into place to alert the residents of low-lying areas to seek higher ground to avoid being swept out to sea? Let’s hope the warning system was implemented and worked properly. A tsunami is scarier to me than a quake. A sea wall of water pulling people out is truly terrifying.
Trying to find cable news coverage but as usual, they can’t be bothered. Just gossip about Santorum and Romney. I will go to work now and watch BBC America tonight. Hope no one was killed.
I turned on cable news this morning too. This is what I found.
CNN: Trayvon Martin
FOX: Rick Santorum
MSNBC: Rick Santorum
Want to know where I found solid news coverage of the Indonesian quake? The Weather Channel. I saw 15 minutes of intelligent coverage on the quake and tsunami warning.
I hope it is not a repeat of the ’04 quake/tsunami disaster– that was catastrophic.
The Ring of Fire is active. The Earth Ship is tired of humanity.
It looks like the threat of a tsuname has been cancelled.
Oops. s/b “tsumani”
CNN International, BBC America and al Jazeera are probably the best TV sources to see reports about the earthquake and tsunami warning.
Someone I work with (an engineer) said as the earth heats, the tectonic plates experience increased activity, along with warmer winters, earlier tornado seasons and more powerful Atlantic storms.
It’s certainly something worth pondering.
India was also set up an tsunami warning system, especially north india is very prone to earthquakes while south india is prone to both earthquakes and tsunamis induced by indonesia epicentric seismic waves