seismic activity

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8.7 & 8.2 Magnitude EARTHQUAKE Hits INDONESIA (Aceh) - TSUNAMI WARNING! The undersea earthquake struck just after 2.30pm local time (6.38pm AEST) and at a depth of 33 kilometers. The quake's epicenter was located 431 kilometers southwest of Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra. An Indian Ocean-wide tsunami watch was put in place immediately following the quake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. The tsunami watch was in place for 28 countries, including Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Burma and Thailand. The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre said there was no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, islands or territories. A spokesman for the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said: ''Earthquakes of this size have the potential to generate a widespread destructive tsunami that can affect coastlines across the entire Indian Ocean basin.'' Amy Vaughn, from the USGS, told Sky News that experts were working to determine precisely where the earthquake occurred and how strong it was. "With an earthquake of this magnitude ... what happens is that basically a large body of water is disturbed by the movement of the fault," she said. "Being this close to the west coast of Sumatra, it could be devastating for the region." People living along India's eastern coast were told to move away from the shore, Sky News reported. Tremors were felt in the cities of Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. The Indian National Center for Ocean Information Service was quick to issue a red high-level warning for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, located in the Indian Ocean. Lower alerts were issued for the coastlines of Andhra Tradesh and Tamil Nadu, in the country's southeast. Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity. A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on December 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three-quarters of them in Aceh. The earthquake monitoring agency in Indonesia said the tsunami warning would remain in place for another few hours, but that there had been no reports so far of a low tide, which would indicate the water was receding before building into a tsunami. Map showing the location of the earthquake The tremor was felt as far away as Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. "There was a tremor felt by all of us working in the building," a man called Vincent in Calcutta, India, told the BBC. "All just ran out of the building and people were asked not to use the elevator. There was a minute of chaos where all started ringing up to their family and asking about their well-being." The Thai office of disaster management said people along the coasts of Phuket, Phang Na and Andaman province should heed warnings and evacuate. Tsunami warning sirens, set up in many vulnerable areas after the 2004 disaster, were heard in Phuket, where correspondents said people were calmly following evacuation routes to safe zones. Indonesia straddles the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of major seismic activity. tags: news 2012 earthquake data magnitude faultline tsunami damage danger warning india indonesia 8.7 water ocean travel earth wave west coast beach 2004 early thailand epicenter burma australia haarp nwo nature natural disaster death 8.2 magnitude 8.8 magnitude trendy Premeprop