BREAKING NEWS: 7.6-magnitude earthquake shakes western Indonesia.

[XemaSab]

Source: MSNBC

.

Read more: www.msnbc.com

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No article yet. I hope this isn't awful. :(

Here's the USGS site:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. 7.6? That won't be good. n/t

[itsrobert]

2. Info

7.5
Date-Time

* Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 08:08:31 UTC
* Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 03:08:31 PM at epicenter

Location 2.751°N, 95.966°E
Depth 34.3 km (21.3 miles)
Region SIMEULUE, INDONESIA
Distances 310 km (195 miles) SSE of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia
310 km (195 miles) WSW of Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia
335 km (210 miles) WNW of Sibolga, Sumatra, Indonesia
1545 km (960 miles) NW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 8.1 km (5.0 miles); depth +/- 29.8 km (18.5 miles)
Parameters Nst= 65, Nph= 65, Dmin=590.3 km, Rmss=1.06 sec, Gp= 61°,
M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=7
Source

USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID us2008nran

[orleans]

3. here's a link:

Strong quake hits Indonesia
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 02/20/2008 12:36:22 AM PST


JAKARTA, Indonesia—A powerful earthquake struck western Indonesia on Wednesday, alarming residents and prompting a tsunami warning, official agencies and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.6, struck off the western coast of Sumatra island close to Simeulue island, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a posting on its Web site.

There was an immediate tsunami warning issued, possibly because the quake was deep under the sea bed.

Several callers told local radio station el-Shinta that the quake was felt strongly on Sumatra, but there was no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

A magnitude-9 quake off Sumatra's coast in 2004 triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_8311684

[XemaSab]

4. Thanks.

I gotta say: the hurricane was bad, 9-11 was bad, the war IS bad.... but the tsunami? Bad on a whole different scale. :(

[Tektonik]

5. I agree about 9-11,

but the war is worse than the tsunami casualty wise (well depending which casualty count you use).

[XemaSab]

6. You're absolutely right

The Iraqi totals are astronomical, it's hard to think about them.

I was thinking about the American totals.

Now I feel like an ass. :(

[freedomnorth]

8. You are right, lets hope there is no tsunami this time. nt.

[aquart]

9. So when we will know if there's a tsunami?

And when will we know when its first landfall will be?

[quakerboy]

7. No good

I hope this is going to be a nonstory, one of those things that turns out to not be as bad as it starts out, because if its a story, that means a lot of people are going to suffer.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Death toll 3 so far; no tsunami

At least three people have been killed and 25 seriously injured by a 7.5-magnitude quake near Indonesia's western Aceh province, officials say.

The tremor, whose epicentre was near the island of Simeulue, 319km (198 miles) off the coast of Sumatra, also damaged many buildings, they added.

The epicentre was close to that of the earthquake which triggered the 2004 Asian tsunami, killing 200,000 people.

Tsunami warning centres initially issued alerts, but later lifted them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7254325.stm

[Birthmark]

11. Too close to Toba for my tastes.

Toba gives me the willies.

[Xithras]

15. Toba will never go off like that again.

At least, not in our lifetimes or the lifetimes of any subsequent generation you'll be interested in. The last Toba eruption was so destructive simply because the volcano formed a huge magma chamber which collapsed. The present Toba volcano has a magma chamber, but it's young and is far too small to generate another eruption of that magnitude. It might be dangerous in another 100k years or so, but the last eruption really took the power out of it.

Long Valley and Yellowstone are far more likely to become dangers in our lifetimes (though even those odds are small).

[Thothmes]

12. Plate Tectonics, ya gotta lovie it.

[pscot]

13. Whole lotta shakin' goin' on

The Falklands, Central America, Greece, and the Western Pacific have all had significant quakes in the last week.

[mitchtv]

14. another 5 pointer near Mexicali yesterday too

they seem to be moving closer to the San Andreas at least three moderate ones in as many weeks