A ship carrying military personnel and search and rescue officials was dispatched today to check on remote island communities in western Indonesia. The 7.8 magnitude, shallow undersea quake hit late yesterday off Sumatra, Indonesia’s main western island, sending panicked residents fleeing for the hills and briefly triggering a tsunami alert.
Yesterday’s tsunami alert was lifted after several hours and life was returning to normal in Sumatra’s major cities, with no reports so far of casualties or major damage to buildings. However the national search and rescue agency said a ship carrying a team, had been dispatched to Tuapejat in the Mentawai Islands, off Sumatra’s west coast, to check on isolated communities.
The islands were the closest land to the quake’s epicentre.
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climate and Geophysics Agency, which monitors earthquakes, said aftershocks were continuing to rumble throughout the region.
An aftershock of 5.6 magnitude at a shallow depth of 10 kms struck this morning about 784 kms south-southwest of the Sumataran island port of Padang. Based on data from these aftershocks, the agency said that there won’t be an earthquake of greater strength.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where the meeting of continental plates causes strong seismic activity, and is frequently hit by earthquakes.