New Earthquake in Padang Sumatra

PADANG, - A major earthquake struck off the city of Padang on the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island on Wednesday, damaging houses, bringing down bridges and starting fires, a witness said. It was unclear if there were any casualties.

The 7.6 magnitude quake was felt around the region, with some high-rise buildings in the city state of Singapore, 275 miles (440 km) to the northeast, evacuating their staff. Office buildings also shook in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre cancelled an earlier tsunami warning. Japan said no tsunami was expected there.

“Hundreds of houses have been damaged along the road. There are some fires, bridges are cut and there is extreme panic here maybe because water pipes are broken and there is flooding in the streets,” said a Reuters witness in the city.

Phone lines were down. Padang, the capital of Indonesia’s West Sumatra province, sits on one of the world’s most active fault lines along the “Ring of Fire” where the Indo-Australia plate grinds against the Eurasia plate to create regular tremors and sometimes quakes.

A 9.15 magnitude quake, with its epicentre roughly 600 km (373 miles) northwest of Padang, caused the 2004 tsunami which killed 232,000 people in Indonesia’s Aceh province, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, and other countries across the Indian Ocean. The depth of Wednesday’s earthquake was measured at 85 km (53 miles), the United States Geological Survey said.

It revised down the magnitude of the quake from 7.9 to 7.6. A series of tsunamis earlier on Wednesday smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa, and Tonga killing possibly more than 100 people, some washed out to sea, destroying villages and injuring hundreds.

Source: http://english.kompas.com