Sumatra Powerful Earthquake

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A report from Mita Valina of Reuters:

A severe earthquake shook Indonesia’s Sumatra region, destroying buildings, killing four people and injuring 21 in a toll experts said was sure to rise.

The quake destroyed nearly 800 homes and damaged buildings and infrastructure in the area.
The 8.4 magnitude earthquake, which was also felt in neighboring Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia on Wednesday, caused extensive damage to buildings along Sumatra’s coast, officials said.

Some buildings had collapsed in Padang, the capital of West Sumatra north of the tremor’s epicenter, witnesses reported, while Metro TV said some buildings had caught fire.

The exact location and time of the quake according to VOA news:

The quake stuck off the southern coast of West Sumatra at about 6:10 p.m. local time (1110 UTC) and toppled at least one building in Bengkulu, a town near the quake’s epicenter.

Update: 14.30 from CNN

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck about 6:45 a.m. (1145 GMT), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was about 185 kilometers (115 miles) south-southeast of Padang and about 210 km northwest of Bengkulu.

About four hours later, the USGS reported that a 7.1-magnitude quake had rocked the region. Sandwiched in-between were half a dozen temblors measuring 5.0 and above.

The quakes came just 12 hours after Indonesia had been rocked by an 8.4-magnitude earthquake that killed at least nine people, and generated a small tsunami about 61 centimeters (2 feet) high along the Sumatran coast.

14 September 2007 8.30 Indonesia time: the New York Times reported 3 hours ago that there are more Earthquakes Strike in Indonesia:

Two more strong earthquakes shook the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra today, following the major quake that hit Wednesday, but the area escaped a major tsunami like the one that devastated the region nearly three years ago.

Just over a dozen people were reported to have died in the earthquakes, although hundreds of buildings were damaged in the coastal cities of Padang and Bengkulu in western Sumatra.

The shaking continued through the day today, keeping residents on edge. Some fled to higher ground away from the coastline; many more camped outdoors in the streets and parks.

Update: Friday, 14 September 2007 15.20 Indonesia time (WIB)
Aid starts rushing to Indonesia quake survivors

Rescue workers in Indonesia rushed aid Friday to Sumatra’s west coast after massive earthquakes killed 13 people there and scared thousands of survivors into sleeping outdoors.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesians should be grateful they were spared catastrophic damage following the major quakes, including the initial 8.4-magnitude temblor on Wednesday.

The Indonesian military and local officials began distributing food and medical aid to survivors without too many constraints, said an official from the national disaster mitigation agency.

A day after tsunami warning being issued, Indonesia lifts 7th tsunami warning after 6.9-magnitude earthquake.

September 15, 10.45:  Experts warn of ‘the big one’

Seismologists warn, however, the worst may be yet to come.

Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology has spent decades studying the fault line that runs along Indonesia’s western coast. He is among several experts predicting a repeat of the powerful earthquake that triggered the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen Indian Ocean countries.

“No one can say whether it will be in 30 seconds or 30 years,” he said. “But what happened the other day, I think is quite possibly a sequence of smaller earthquakes leading up to the bigger one.”

Saturday, September 15, 18.50: A health ministry official said on Saturday

The toll from a severe earthquake on Indonesia’s Sumatra island last week has risen to 17 dead and 88 injured.

Rustam Pakaya, a senior health ministry official, told Reuters that as of late Friday, a total of 17 people had died in Bengkulu and West Sumatra provinces, the two regions closest to the quake’s epicentre, and 88 people had been injured.

September 20, 9.45: Strong quake hits Indonesia, no tsunami threat or damage:

A strong earthquake has rocked Indonesia’s island of Sumatra, but no tsunami warning was issued and no damage or casualties were reported.

Updated: September 22 10:05; Another earthquake in Indonesia.

A tectonic earthquake measuring five point one on the richter scale has struck 104 kilometres southwest of Painan in Indonesia’s West Sumatra.

This entry was posted on September 13, 2007 at September 13, 2007 and is filed under Blogger Indonesia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.