Not good.

Earthquake strikes off coast off Sumatra

An 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck in the sea off the coast of Sumatra at 4.09 p.m. British time, the U.S. Geological Survey has told Reuters.

A USGS spokeswoman said the quake struck 125 miles west northwest off Sibolga, Sumatra or 880 miles northwest of the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, close to where a 9.0 December quake triggered a devastating Tsunami in Asia.

The USGS spokeswoman could not say if the quake on Monday would trigger a Tsunami.

Let’s hope not. Nothing on any tsunami yet.

[update] Quake now reported as 8.7 and CNN radio reporting a small tsunami on some islands off the coast Sumatra (can’t find on their site yet); no verified reports of injuries or deaths yet.

[update] Quake deaths now being reported. Looks like the danger of major tsunami (from this quake) has passed.

[update]The badly misnamed wits0 sent me a link to a MSNBC’s Earthquake Witness Weblog (which isn’t really a weblog, more like the comments in a weblog).

5 Comments

  1. Bill Ewing
    Posted 28 Mar, 2005 at 15:39 | Permalink

    Knowing how much you are concerned about Thailand, know that the entire island of Sumatra is protecting Thailand from any large if any tsunami action on this one.
    You may wish to check out http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/ and click on “World”.

  2. Posted 28 Mar, 2005 at 19:10 | Permalink

    Thanks Bill!

  3. Bill Ewing
    Posted 29 Mar, 2005 at 02:06 | Permalink

    Toda via a su servicio. (Thats all the Spanish I know, so please do not reply in kind.)
    B.

  4. wits0
    Posted 30 Mar, 2005 at 18:29 | Permalink

    More to come(?):
    http://www.todayonline.com/articles/42572.asp

    Fears of a third quake emerge
    Experts: It could hit Banda Aceh within 3 months….

    Hmmm…is any series limited to just 3? One has a feeling that more is likely.

  5. Posted 30 Mar, 2005 at 19:40 | Permalink

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see more. I saw some speculation on that possibility (similar to what was in the article you linked) even before this latest one.

    Let’s just hope that, if there are any more, they are smaller ones and that they don’t make more tsunamis… an earthquake is bad enough.