I have seen NO discussion of the prior 8.3 earthquake not too far from there only a few days ago - how it relates to this quake.
Did it cause this earthquake - on the same plate/fault line?
Even more mysterious and definitely never talked about was this near miss by an asteroid on Christmas Eve opposite from the earthquake centers !!??
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2004+VW14
you can step the simulation forwards/backwards one day at a time!
The previous M 8.1 earthquake south of Australia was 5,200 miles away from the M 9 quake near Sumatra. Completely different fault system.
As you get further away from the US people tend to underestimate how far away things are from each other.