Indonesia issued a tsunami warning after a powerful and shallow earthquake struck off the west coast of the island of Sumatra, an area ravaged by the 2004 tsunami.
The 7.9 magnitude earthquake, which struck at a depth of 10 kilometres, triggered the tsunami alert for parts of West Sumatra, North Sumatra and Aceh, the National Meteorolgical Agency said.
The epicentre was 808 km southwest of Padang, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. It initially put it at 8.2, then 8.1 before the final resolution at 7.9.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties but the shallower a quake, the more likely it is to cause damage.
Indonesia, particularly the region of Aceh, was badly hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.
The country straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.
The 2004 tsunami claimed a whopping 230,000 lives in about 12 countries, with most of the deaths occurring in Aceh province.
Credit: Timeslive
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