New Delhi: April 11, 2012

Indonesia’s geophysical agency says there has been an earthquake of 8.9 on the Richter scale off Aceh, tsunami warning has been issued. Mild tremors felt in Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore.

No reports of damage anywhere in Indonesia

Aftershocks of 6.5 have felt in in the Aceh province of Indonesia.

Major traffic jams across Indonesia as people move to higher, safer places. Phuket airport has been temporarily closed.

On Twitter: #Tsunami “less likely” because #earthquake off #Indonesia moved horizontally, not vertically, USGS spokesman tells BBC.

The BBC says that the quake triggered a tsunami warning across the Indian Ocean region. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it was not yet known whether a tsunami had been generated, but said authorities should “take appropriate action”. The region is regularly hit by earthquakes. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 killed 170,000 people in Aceh.

To the east of India, tremors were also felt in Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

A tsunami warning has been issued in 28 countries including India, Pakistan, UK, Australia, Myanmar and Maldives.

Indonesia earthquake is the 8th largest or shall we say strongest earthquake in 100 years.

In India, a tsunami warning has been issued in the Andaman and Nicobar islands only, as of now. TV reports say tremors were felt for at least 12 seconds in the islands.

The National Disaster Management Agency says waves could hit TN coast by 4.30 pm.

A PTI report just in, says that an earthquake measuring 3.4 on the Richter scale was recorded in the Arabia Sea, according to the Met office. ”The shock registered at 18.6 degree latitude and 71.3 degree longitude in the Arabian Sea,” Met department director Rajeev Nair said. The epicentre was 155 km from Mumbai, he said. Meanwhile, there were reports of tremors being felt in some parts of north Mumbai but the Met department said these could not be verified so far.

On Twitter: Rajiv Menon from Bangalore says that ITPL, Electronic City all evacuated.

NDTV’s nitin gokhale says Standard drills activated in entire Andaman Nicobar island chain. At Port Blair, people ran out of their houses, say eyewitnesses.

Metro services in Kolkata have been suspended. Tremors were felt in two phases in Kolkata, lasting a few seconds each

CNN says 6-metre high waves are likely. The National Disaster Management Agency says the quake is enough to trigger a tsunami.

The tsunami centre’s warning in Indonesia said quakes of such a magnitude “have the potential to generate a widespread destructive tsunami that can affect coastlines across the entire Indian Ocean basin”. The tremor was felt as far away as Singapore, Thailand and India. Reuters reports that people in the region were making their way to higher ground, reports the bbc.

Sri Lanka has also issued a tsunami warning along with Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia.

Reuters reports that people in the region were making their way to higher ground. The BBC’s Karishma Vaswani in the Indonesian capital Jakarta says there were reports of the ground shaking for up to five minutes. Indonesia straddles the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of major seismic activity.

In India tremors were officially felt in Great Nicobar, Little Andaman, Port Blair, North Andaman, Chennai, Kakinada, Trivandrum, Mangalore, Mumbai and the Gulf of Kutch. That’s from the Pacific Tsunami warning centre.

Still unconfirmed, but the tsunami will most likely not hit India because, the Sumatra earthquake moved horizontally, not vertically. However, the Chennai port has been shut and fishermen have been asked to move to higher places. No waves noticed so far in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which means that the tsunami is virtually ruled out, says NDMA vice president Sasidhra Reddy.

 

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