11th April, 2012
The Indonesian president said on Wednesday there was no immediate threat of a tsunami from an 8.6-magnitude earthquake that struck off Sumatra island.
Indonesia has issued its own tsunami warning and an Indian Ocean-wide alert was also issued after the quake, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said there was no immediate threat.
“So far, there is no tsunami threat,” he said on national television.
In India too the National Disaster Management Authority said there was no likelihood of tsunami being formed anywhere in the Indian Ocean.
Earlier on Wednesday, India issued a tsunami warning for Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the eastern coast after a 8.7 magnitude quake in Indonesia shook major cities, causing panic and sending people fleeing onto the streets.
Hundreds of office workers in Bangalore left their buildings while the Indian port of Chennai closed down because of the danger of a tsunami, the port said.
Indonesia’s disaster management agency said power was down in Aceh province and people were gathering on high ground as sirens warned of the danger.
“The electricity is down, there are traffic jams to access higher ground. Sirens and Koran recitals from mosques are everywhere,” said Sutopo, spokesman for the agency.
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service issued a red high-level warning for the islands, and also put out lower alerts for the coasts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.
A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on December 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh.
Last year, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake caused a tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, killing some 19,000 people. On Wednesday Japan’s Meteorological Agency said that there was no risk of a tsunami affecting Japanese coasts.
Geoscience Australia, Canberra’s geohazards agency, said there was no risk to Australia from the jolt. Taiwan and New Zealand also said the earthquake posed no threat to the respective countries.