Tsunami Fears High In Pacific Region Following Magnitude 8.7 Earthquake In Indonesia

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Magnitude 8.7 Earthquake Strikes Indonesia, Tsunami Watch Issued For Pacific Ocean Region

Earthquake!!! As the aftershocks continue to rumble, we’re praying there is no tsunami — we still remember the disaster in Thailand from 2004!

A massive earthquake off Indonesia’s western coast triggered tsunami fears across the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, sending residents in coastal cities fleeing to high ground in cars and on the backs of motorcycles.

A strong aftershock nearly three hours later sparked a new wave of panic. Indonesia’s government responded by issuing a fresh tsunami warning.

Some residents were crying in Aceh, where memories of a 2004 tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province alone, are still raw. Others screamed “God is great” as they poured from their homes or searched frantically for separated family members.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first 8.6-magnitude quake was centered 20 miles beneath the ocean floor around 269 miles from Aceh province.

That prompted the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii to issue a tsunami watch 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 wave measuring less than 30 inches high, rolled to Indonesia’s coast. There were no other signs of serious damage.

But just as the region was sighing relief, an 8.2-magnitude aftershock hit.

“We just issued another tsunami warning,” Prih Harjadi, from Indonesia’s geophysics agency, told TVOne in a live interview.

People along the western coast of Sumatra island and the Mentawai islands were told to stay clear of coasts.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centers watch remained in effect. A tsunami watch means there is the potential for a tsunami, not that one is imminent.

The initial quake was a strike-slip, not a thrust quake, according to experts. In a strike slip quake, the earth moves horizontally rather than vertically and doesn’t displace large volumes of water.

They were still analyzing the aftershock.

“When I first saw this was an 8.7 near Sumatra, I was fearing the worst,” Roger Musson, seismologist at the British geological survey who has studied Sumatra’s fault lines, noting one of the initial reported magnitudes for the quake. “But as soon as I discovered what type of earthquake it was, then I felt a lot better.”

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 Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, most of them in Aceh.

The photo we used is from Banda Aceh — you can see how frightened people are. We are praying for everyone in the Pacific Ocean region right now. Isht is really real.

Source CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP/Getty Images