|
Andaman and Nicobar Earthquake
24 July 2005
A strong earthquake last night shook India's
Andaman and Nicobar islands, prompting Thailand to
briefly issue an emergency warning to six coastal areas. The quake,
which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, caused panicked residents on the
islands to flee their homes, but there were no early reports of casualties or
damage, police said.
The earthquake, which hit at
9.12pm local time, also jolted the southern Indian states of Madras and Tamil Nadu.
"The quake was felt in all the islands of the Andaman and Nicobar chain," a police official told Reuters.
The US Geological Survey urged
authorities near the epicentre to be aware of the risk of local
tsunamis. However, the chief federal administrator for the islands said
that they were not likely to be hit by a tsunami.
"There has been no tsunami
alert."
Yesterday's tremor was not the
first to trigger fears of another disaster, but agencies which had been
criticised for failing to predict the Boxing Day tsunami were quick to warn
of the potential danger. The official warning had been given just
before midnight local time, although local warnings had been issued earlier
in the southern coastal areas, according to local TV stations.
Sri
Lanka, which was also hit by last
year's disaster, did not issue a tsunami warning yesterday. The
435-mile-long archipelago in the Andaman
Sea is situated on an undersea fault
line that travels south to Indonesia.
The earthquake also shook Indonesia's
Aceh province - one of the areas worst hit by the
Boxing Day tsunami - but no injuries or damage were reported.
The Andaman and Nicobar islands experienced hundreds of
aftershocks following the powerful undersea earthquake that caused the
December tsunami.
Residents in Aceh
said they felt the quake, but there appeared to be little panic in the area.
|
