இந்தோனேசியாவின் சுமத்ரா பகுதியில் இன்று வியாழக்கிழமை காலை மீண்டும் பாரிய நிலநடுக்கம் ஏற்பட்டுள்ளது.

மேலும் வாசிக்க

WARNING: 3rd Tsunami Warning to Sri Lanka

Japan's Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning for Indonesia, Australia, India and Sri Lanka on Thursday after another powerful earthquake rocked the south of Sumatra Island. This is the third alert and warning within 24 hours for the possible Tsunami in the Indian Ocean basin.

Indonesia previously issued two tsunami warnings, one after the first quake magnitude of 8.2, and the second after a smaller tremor magnitude of 6.6, a few hours later in the same area.

Authorities in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh issued tsunami warnings, as did India for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and France for the island of Reunion.

The earlier Indonesian warnings and most others in the region were lifted hours later. An official at Indonesia's meteorological agency said gauges measured a wave surge of one meter after the first quake.

Across the Indian Ocean, Mozambique warned a tsunami was due to hit its coast and urged citizens to evacuate and head to higher ground.

The latest quake struck off the western coast of the province of Sumatra at 9.10 pm (AEST), damaging buildings and cutting off power to the coastal city of Bengkulu, 160 kilometers east of the quake's epicenter.

The quake was powerful enough to shake tall buildings and cause evacuations in Jakarta, another 600 kilometers away.

"The emergency rescue system has mobilized and the president has ordered the military to help the rescue effort," said Indonesian presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng.

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

Padang Mayor Fauzi Bahar said three people were trapped in a collapsed three-story office building.

Earlier a powerful earthquake has struck off the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, triggering tsunami alerts across the Indian Ocean. Wednesday's earthquake struck at 1810 (1110 GMT), about 15km (nine miles) under the sea, some 100km (60 miles) south-west of the city of Bengkulu, the US Geological Survey said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.9 but latter it was elevated to 8.2.

Besides Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and a number of small islands were put on alert. The Tsunami could reach Trincomalee at 15:02 UTC (8:32 p.m., local time), Jaffna at 16:25 UTC (9:57 p.m., local time) and Colombo 15:15 UTC (8:47 p.m.local time).

"Earthquakes of this size have the potential to generate a widespread destructive tsunami that can affect coastlines across the entire Indian Ocean Basin," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said in its alert to the region.

The centre warned that waves triggered by the quake could hit Indonesia and Australia within an hour and Sri Lanka and India within three hours.

Ken Navidad at the U.S. Geological Survey said in Denver said the tsunami centers in the Pacific and Alaska initially said two quakes, but he did not know why. He said his agency has measured only one.

Wednesday's earthquake is 10 times smaller than the one that caused the giant tsunami off the northern tip of Indonesia in 2004, John Applegate of the USGS in Washington said.

But he added: "The earthquake itself is a warning that there could be a tsunami, and people have to get off the beaches." Applegate said it was a shallow earthquake, about 19 miles deep, which is more of a threat to the local population.

"(With a) deep earthquake, the waves have to travel through a lot of the earth before they reach population; shallow earthquake means the local population is right there," he explained.

"It also means that it’s more likely to rupture the surface, and with this being a sub sea earthquake, that means there is the tsunami potential." Tsunami warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska said no tsunamis were expected in their areas.

Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific Basin's "Ring of Fire" - an arc of volcanoes and fault lines, is prone to seismic upheaval. In December 2004, a massive earthquake off Sumatra Island triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people, including 160,000 people in Indonesia's province of Ache.

லங்கா கொம்