8.7 magnitude earthquake off Indonesia. Tsunami warning issued.

[Marv]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-country.html

Indonesia has issued a tsunami warning after a massive earthquake hit waters off its coast today during a visit there by Prime Minister David Cameron.

The quake, with an 8.7 magnitude, hit waters off, Aceh, the same westernmost province that was devastated in 2004 Boxing Day disaster.

The quake was centred 20 miles beneath the ocean floor around 308 miles from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

People there screamed 'God is great!' as they jumped into cars and the backs of motorcycles, clogging streets as they fled to high ground.

The 9.1-magnitude quake seven years go triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh.
[...]

Termors were felt as far away as the Indian capital of Delhi.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami watch was in effect for 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.

A tsunami watch means there is the potential for a tsunami, not that one is imminent. Since 2004 such warnings are issued after every earthquake in the Pacific.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

[CbabyRKO]

The thought that both the 2004 disaster happened in my lifetime and then not too long after that the devestation and fallout from Katrina in 06 is just something that will always stick with me. I always get a lil scared when I hear of tsunamis simply becoz I hate people losing their lives in such a tragic way.