Mar 03 2016, 07:38 PM
Quote:Indonesian authorities lifted a tsunami warning issued after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the island of Sumatra, in a region where an undersea tremor killed hundreds of thousands in 2004.
The tremor hit 500 miles (804 kilometers) southwest of Padang in Sumatra at a depth of about 15 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Indonesia’s national disaster mitigation agency initially reported the quake at a magnitude of 8.3.
Tremors were noted in tall buildings in the capital Jakarta on Java island, though residents in West Sumatran towns said the quake was lightly felt. People on the coast of Sumatra should move inland, Andi Eka Sakya, an official with Indonesia’s meteorology office, said earlier on tvOne.
Authorities declared a state of emergency for Sumatra to optimize assistance, Heronimus Guru, deputy operations director at the national search and rescue agency known as Basarnas, said via text message. Footage aired on the TVRI television channel showed Padang city in darkness as electricity was cut off. People were seen fleeing toward the east of city with roads congested.
President Joko Widodo was on the second day of a visit to Sumatra and is safe, according to Bey Machmudin, head of the palace press bureau. He is scheduled to return to Jakarta on Thursday.
"There is no info on casualties or damages yet," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman at the national disaster mitigation agency, said via text message. "The tsunami warning is based on modeling, while tsunami buoys in Indonesian waters haven’t reported any existence of a tsunami. Many buoys are broken and not functioning, so we don’t know whether the potential for a tsunami in the waters is true or not."
Source: Bloomberg