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Indonesia issued a tsunami warning on Monday after a powerful quake struck off the western coast of Sumatra island. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 and had the "potential to cause a tsunami," Indonesia's geophysics agency said in a statement.

A strong earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra Island early Thursday morning, temporarily triggering a tsunami warning. The local meteorological agency lifted the warning later, according to Reuters news agency. Quoting the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the Japanese agency said there is no threat of a destructive widespread tsunami. The Japanese agency said the quake at around 4:03 a.m. registered a preliminary 7.0 magnitude. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake marked a preliminary 7.1 and originated around 30 kilometers underground about 330 kilometers south of Padang, Sumatra.

Warning of tsunami greater than 2004 By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 05/09/2007 Tens of millions of people who live in the Bay of Bengal face the threat of a tsunami as massive as the one that devastated the Sumatran coast in 2004, a leading geologist warns today. Satellite images showing Banda Aceh before (top) and after (bottom) the 2004 tsunami While the Boxing Day 2004 disaster took the scientific community by surprise, killing around a quarter of a million people, one geologist who had sounded the alert about the dangers in the Indian Ocean now says...

Powerful Indonesian earthquake kills 70 By ZAKKI HAKIM, Associated Press Writer 20 minutes ago A powerful earthquake crumpled houses across a large swath of western Indonesia on Tuesday, killing at least 70 people and injuring hundreds, authorities said, predicting that the toll would rise. The magnitude 6.3 quake struck on Sumatra island and was felt as far away as neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, where some tall buildings were evacuated. It was followed by several strong aftershocks. "Women were crying out in terror. We all just fled as quickly as we could," said Alpion, a welder in the seaside town of...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (Reuters) -- An earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale shook Indonesia's Sumatra island on Tuesday, panicking residents in West Sumatra province and sending slight tremors to neighboring Singapore. The United States Geological Survey said the quake's magnitude was 6.3 and its epicentre was around 420 km (260 miles) from Singapore. The Indonesian national quake centre said the epicentre was 16 km (10 miles) west of the city of Batusangkar. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The devastating Tusnami was precursor to what is coming in 2012. Toba in Sumatra can explode 100 times more violently than what happened 74,000 years back. The last supervolcano to erupt was Toba 74,000 years ago in Sumatra. Ten thousand times bigger than Mt St Helens, it created a global catastrophe dramatically affecting life on Earth. Scientists now find through extrapolation cycle study that the 74,000 years back super volcano in Toba, Sumatra was the warm up for what may be coming in 2012. Around Toba, increasing harmonic tremors have started after the Tsunami two years back. It would devastate...

A powerful earthquake shook buildings and panicked residents across a large swath of western Indonesia on Friday, officials and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 and was centered underneath northern Sumatra province, said Indonesia's Meteorological and Geophysical agency. The temblor was felt in several towns and cities in the region and lasted around 5 seconds, witnesses told local radio.

Washington D.C. Zoo Shows Off Three Sumatran Tiger Cubs Sunday, September 03, 2006 WASHINGTON — The introduced three to the public Saturday, more than three months after they were born.The cubs, two female and one male, had been kept inside since their May 24 birth to bond with their mother. In the last few days, the cubs were introduced to the outdoors to make sure that they could safely get around.<<<snip>>>  AP Sept. 3: Two of three Sumatran tiger cubs born at the National Zoo make their debut. AP Sept. 3: Maharani, one of three Sumatran tiger cubs born at the...

Krakatoa -- Volcano of Destruction premieres 9 PM ET/PT on the Discovery Channel!! If you click this link: Beyond: Volcanoes a player will load with links to four videos; the first will play automatically. The 2nd, "Lava Junkies", is pretty good. The 4th, "Ultimate Guide to Volcanoes: Montserrat" is amazing. It's four minutes long; the final minute has an astonishing sequence in it. Sorry that I don't know a way to skip the commercial preceding it.

The powerful earthquake that hit Indonesia was just the latest display of violent seismic activity on the archipelago, which stretches across one of the most unstable parts of the Earth's surface. The country's position on the planet's crust means it will continue to experience such catastrophes, just as it has done for the past 50 million years or so, according to seismologists. "The problem with Indonesia is that you have an area of intense seismic activity coinciding with a very densely populated part of the world," said Gary Gibson, professor of seismology at the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. "It...

JAKARTA, Indonesia - The U.N. health agency described the deaths of six Indonesian family members from bird flu as the most important development in the spread of the virus since 2003, saying it is investigating whether the disease has spread from person to person. "We have a team down there, they are examining what is going on and they can't find an animal source of this infection," said Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the Western Pacific region of the World Health Organization. "This is the first time that we've been completely stumped" by a source for the infection, he said. Six...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) An Indonesian jetliner has crashed in a residential neighborhood in Medan, the largest city on Sumatra island.

Sound from last December's huge tsunami-causing earthquake was picked up by underwater microphones designed to listen for nuclear explosions. Scientists this week released an audio file of the frighteningly long-lasting cracks and splits along the Sumatra-Andaman Fault in the Indian Ocean. The spine-tingling hiss and rumble is an eerie reminder of the devastation and death that is still being tallied in the largest natural disaster in modern times. At least 200,000 people are thought to have died as a result of the magnitude 9.3 earthquake, the tsunami, and the lack of food, drinkable water and medical supplies that followed. The...

JAKARTA, Indoneisa - A strong earthquake rocked a large swath of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island on Tuesday, shaking buildings and causing panic, witnesses and a meteorological official said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The U.S. Geological Survey issued a preliminary report saying the quake measured 6.8. It struck off the west coast of the island at 8:52 a.m. local time and was “strongly felt,” across west Sumatra and outlying islands, said Budi Waluyu, from the government’s geophysical and meteorological agency. Callers to el-Shinta radio station from Medan, a large city on Sumatra, said tall buildings shook and...

(CNN) -- Dramatic new data from the December 26, 2004, Sumatran-Andaman earthquake that generated deadly tsunamis show the event created the longest fault rupture and the longest duration of faulting ever observed, according to three reports by an international group of seismologists published Thursday in the journal "Science." "Normally, a small earthquake might last less than a second; a moderate sized earthquake might last a few seconds. This earthquake lasted between 500 and 600 seconds (at least 10 minutes)," said Charles Ammon, associate professor of geosciences at Penn State University. The quake released an amount

ALARM - Indonesia: Earthquake a magnitude of 6,9 in Sumatra JAKARTA - an earthquake a magnitude of 6,9 on the open scale of Richter shook the island indonésienne of Sumatra Saturday, indicated the local weather services.

Mega volcano threatens Sumatra islands 4/18/2005 10:53:00 PM GMT Indonesia's Mount Semeru volcano spews smoke in southeast of Surabaya, the capital of East Java Volcanic ashes forced thousands of people in Sumatra Islands flea the active volcanic region, currently experiencing harmonic tremor and other signs of an eminent mega volcano in that region soon. Recent series of volcanoes in the same area are alarming, and has made many geologists run to their computer model seeking clues and validation of facts. Toba in Sumatra experienced the massive volcano of VEI 8.0 – super volcano 74,000 years back. The deep Java trench...

Jakarta, Detikcom - On Wednesday, Indonesia's Vice President Jusuf Kalla asked people living in area near of mount of Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatoa) and Tangkuban Perahu to prepare from being evacuated. The VP announcement released as the danger level has been raised to level III on both volcanoes. ''We asked them to get ready, to be aware, but please don't be panic,'' said Kalla in his office in Jakarta. He added that the government would ask or order them to evacuate when the situation has reached level IV (four). ''They have to be evacuated when the level has reach...

Thousands flee in panic as Indonesian volcano spews into life MOUNT TALANG, Indonesia (AFP) - A volcano spewed into life on Indonesia's disaster-blighted Sumatra island, spreading new panic after the recent tsunami and earthquakes and driving thousands from their homes. Mount Talang, 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Sumatra's coastal Padang city began pumping out volcanic ash shortly before dawn, prompting scientists to urge people to move away from the fall-out zone. More than 20,000 people have been evacuated from the volcano's slope, the Antara news agency quoted local official Bustamar saying. It said the volcano's status had been raised...

An earthquake has struck near Indonesia's northern island of Sumatra, triggering fears of new tsunamis, but none were reported. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, just before 5:30p.m. local time (1030 GMT) had a magnitude of 6.8. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it was a 6.7. It was centered 115 kilometers (70 miles) southwest of Padang, Sumatra, the USGS said.

HONG KONG (AP) -- A strong earthquake hit Sunday near the Indonesian island of Sumatra, Hong Kong seismologists said. The 6.8-magnitude tremor's epicenter was about 74 miles southwest of Padang, a city in western Sumatra, the Hong Kong Observatory said. The quake was recorded at 6:35 a.m. EDT, it said. Sumatra was devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami and earthquake that killed nearly 183,000 people in 11 countries and left another 129,000 missing. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was the hardest hit, with at least 126,000 people killed and more than 500,000 left homeless, mostly in Aceh province...

"Super volcano" could dwarf Indonesia's earthquake catastrophes: expert Fri Apr 1,12:21 AM ET Science - AFP SYDNEY (AFP) - As Indonesians struggled to recover from the second deadly earthquake to strike them in three months, an Australian expert warned the country faced the prospect of a "super volcano" eruption that would dwarf all previous catastrophes. AFP/File Photo Professor Ray Cas of Monash University's School of Geosciences said the world's biggest super volcano was Lake Toba, on Indonesia's island of Sumatra, site of both the recent massive earthquakes. Cas told Australian media Friday that Toba sits on a faultline running down...

From a blogger: Yesterday's quake near Indonesia reminded me of my December 28, 2004 post in which I wondered aloud whether the quake of that week had really moved islands by as much as 20 meters (66 feet), as implied by headlines all over the Internet. I just conducted a Yahoo! search and found the following, which cites the work of two Danish scientists: "The Indonesian islands of Sumatra moved only 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) on average after last month's Asian earthquake and tsunami, and not dozens of meters as previously feared." As I predicted, GPS came to the rescue....

Eleven days ago, a team of earthquake experts published a scientific paper precisely describing how the titanic tsunami-generating earthquake off Sumatra on Dec. 26 greatly raised risks of a fresh offshore earthquake. The earthquake they described was almost exactly like the one that struck yesterday. The paper's authors and other experts had calculated how the December shock increased stress on the adjacent section of the Sunda Trench, a seam in the earth's crust where one plate dives beneath another. The pressure greatly increased the chance that the seam would fail, they said. The new earthquake was generated when the plates...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University seismologists have determined that the Dec. 26 Sumatra earthquake that set off a deadly tsunami throughout the Indian Ocean was three times larger than originally thought, making it the second largest earthquake ever instrumentally recorded and explaining why the tsunami was so destructive. By analyzing seismograms from the earthquake, Seth Stein and Emile Okal, both professors of geological sciences in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, calculated that the earthquake's magnitude measured 9.3, not 9.0, and thus was three times larger. These results have implications for why Sri Lanka suffered such a great impact...

'It's just chaos. There's the black market and the government is stockpiling [goods]. It has made us pretty angry. This stuff is pouring in and warehouses are filling up and people are controlling it. Our mission is to get the supplies to the people who need it most. We're doing everything we can. We're just this little independent mission. Spirits are still high. Everyone has just been incredible. We're just a very, very happy ship, and we're doing great things.'

Tsunami-Battered Sumatra Ripe for More Disasters John Roach for National Geographic News January 7, 2005 The force of the magnitude 9 earthquake that struck northern Sumatra on December 26, 2004, may have caught much of the world by surprise. But scientists say the region has a violent geologic past and is ripe for more cataclysmic earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in the millennia to come. The Indonesian island sits in an area of the Indian Ocean where several large chunks of Earth's crust, known as tectonic plates, collide. Tectonic plates can slip past, beneath, and over the top of each other....

A memorial video re: Asian tsunami/compilation of most amateur footage.

Laksamana.Net - Sumatran tigers, on the brink of extinction due to poaching and rampant illegal logging, killed 18 people in and around a conservation forest in Riau province last year, an official said Monday (10/1/05). The attacks took place in the 150,000-acre Senepis Tiger Conservation Area and in outlying villages, said John Kenedie, head of Riau’s Nature Conservation Office. "In 2004 alone, 18 villagers were killed. Over the past five years, there have been 40 locals who had fallen prey of the Sumatran tigers," he was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara. He said the endangered tigers often...

Time is GMT + 8 hours Posted: 11 January 2005 2025 hrs Thousands of Acehnese flee to Medan, concerns mount of overcrowding By Channel NewsAsia's Sujadi Siswo in Medan MEDAN : The North Sumatran capital of Medan has once again become the city of refuge for thousands of fleeing Acehnese. For the past 30 years, villagers fleeing the political conflict in Aceh have fled to Medan. It is no different now, since the tsunami struck. When the tsunami struck, Madam Rosme and husband took refuge in the Banda Aceh central mosque. Their first plan was to fly to Medan, where...

SURVIVOR: Third high seas rescue of survivor KLANG, Jan 10:A bizarre variety of flotsam helped a 22-year-old Indonesian survive adrift for 15 days after the deadly tsunami struck the region on Dec 26. Ari Afrizal was finally rescued by the Liberian-registered container ship MV Al Yamamah about noon yesterday some 320km off the western coast of Sumatra, and arrived safely at Westport in Klang about 11.45pm. He had been found floating in a fishing raft about 10 metres long. It was his third "lifeboat". Ari, from Desa Kabong in Krueng, Sabee, Aceh Jaya, had been working on a house in...

But Indonesia failed to heed him; Utah isn't listening either, he says PROVO — Brigham Young University geology professor Ron Harris has had trouble sleeping since the earthquake he predicted seven years ago killed an estimated 150,000 people along the rim of the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26. Research by Harris indicated an earthquake with a magnitude of at least 8.0 was due in the ocean west of Sumatra and would cause a devastating tsunami. He published the research in an Indonesian journal and pleaded with the government there to prepare, but little was done. "It might not have made...

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — An extremist Islamic group with alleged Al Qaeda (search) links has set up a relief camp on Indonesia's tsunami-stricken Sumatra island, raising concerns it could stir up sentiment against U.S. and Australian troops helping distribute aid.

ABOARD USS BONHOMME RICHARD, At sea (NNS) -- The multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (BHR) (LHD 6) is on station and in position to provide large-scale humanitarian assistance to tsunami victims on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Since Jan. 3, the San Diego-based ship has been flying aboard hundreds of thousands of pounds of disaster relief supplies from both support ships and warehouses in Sumatra in preparation to deliver it to the hardest hit areas of the island. According to Bonhomme Richard Commanding Officer Capt. J. Scott Jones, BHR brings the right airlift, sealift and medical capabilities to...

Bireuen, Acehkita. Five villages that were hit by the tsunmai in Kecamatan Samalanga Kabupaten Bireun, are going to hold a ritual feast (kenduri) today (6/1). The ceremony will be done as way of marking their return to the sea, one week after the natural disaster. The ceremony will be held at the edge of the shore in Ulee Kareung Village, a place that was swept clean by the tsunami. Several other villages, including Tamboe, Ara, Peuneulet Baroh, Cureh Baroh, dan Cureng Tunong will also participate in the event. Muhammad (30) a resident of Cureh Baroh who was interviewed by acehkita,...

Subject: Don't listen to CNN I've edited out the identity of the person who sent this as his job would be in serious jeopardy if Senator Leahy gets wind of this. But it may begin to explain to some people how their preoccupation with single 'issues' can have disastrous repercussions for all the other things they may - or may not - hold dear. And it may lend some balance to the media's tendentious reporting on efforts being made to alleviate the suffering. On a final note, this guy is an American who, along with a lot of other Americans,...

Please Read The ENTIRE Article Tsunami: Where US Media Failed by Dr. Michael Saba A friend posed a question to me. He said, “You write about these things all of the time. Does it make sense that the US has allocated $87 billion to spend on Iraq and only $35 million to help the people of South and Southeast Asia devastated by the earthquake and tsunami?” Is the US “the most generous nation in the world” as stated by President Bush or is it one of the most “stingy” countries as mentioned by Jan Egeland, the UN relief coordinator? And...

Japan Becomes Top Donor With $500 Million Pledge Navy Helicopters Begin Aid Delivery in Sumatra BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Jan. 1 -- The first U.S. Navy helicopters fluttered in from an offshore carrier group Saturday and ferried aid to flattened towns along the western coast of Sumatra island largely cut off from help since a tsunami six days ago inflicted one of history's great disasters on Indonesia. A day after the United States increased its contribution to the tsunami reconstruction effort to $350 million, Japan raised its pledge from $30 million to $500 million. With Japan's donation, the largest from...

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 01. Januar 2005, 18:59 URL: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,335207,00.html Hygiene Emergency Doctors Confirm Cholera Outbreak Many remote areas are still without help on the sixth day after the flood catastrophe. US-Helicoptors reached the region for the frist time today, and they are now distributing food and medicine from the air. Meanwhile, Cholera has broken out in a refugee camp in Sri Lanka. AP Aid delivery: Packages are thrown out above the crisis areas Galle/Banda Aceh - A doctor has diagnosed the gastro-intestinal disease cholera in four families in a reception camp in the city of Galle, Sri Lanka. The spokesperson for the relief organization...

"I've lost my fear," said Muhammed, a slight, skinny man with sad eyes, sunken cheeks and a sliver of a mustache. "I don't have any fear anymore." Five days after the tsunami struck, killing an estimated 80,000 people in Indonesia, early details are emerging about the extent of devastation on Aceh's west coast, which was closest to the epicenter of the earthquake that triggered the massive waves.

A United States defence reconnaissance team flew out of Medan yesterday to the stricken west coast town of Meulaboh as the US prepared to deliver a massive aid effort to Indonesia. The US is planning to base its efforts at Meulaboh, which was almost at the epicentre of Sunday's quake and was then swamped by two giant waves. About 15,000 people are thought to have died and 80 per cent of the infrastructure was destroyed. "We will go where the Indonesian Government wants us to go," a US embassy spokesman, Tim Gerhardson, said. "We are conscious of not telling them...

<p>Some officials say the long overdue big earthquake in California is due any time.(1)(2) Sure, it’s all guesstimation -- Nobody knows for sure what is exactly going on beneath our feet -- and our houses and trees. But as knowledge from modern research is assembled, better forecasts can be given. This discussion is primarily for the San Francisco Bay Area.</p>

We are suffering. We have many friends among the dead and missing. Pray for the dead, the dying, and the living.

Taiwan's national space programme offered Wednesday its satellite images of the damage caused by powerful tsunamis that ravaged Asia at the weekend to affected countries and aid groups for free. The National Space Programme Office (NSPO) normally charges 3,000 euros (4,080 dollars) for each photograph covering an area of 600 square kilometres (240 square miles), the office said. The images would be provided free of charge to affected countries and had been posted on NSPO's website, programme head Lance Wu said. Its images of badly hit Puhket island in Thailand and Indonesia's Banda Aceh were probably among the first taken...

HONG KONG (AFP) - When the catastrophic earthquake struck, British tourist Al Howard and his French girlfriend Sophie Pasquier were among the closest people on the planet to its tumultuous epicentre. Two days later -- after an epic journey across seas littered with floating corpses and mangled cars, then crawling over a wasteland of flattened houses and bloodied bodies -- the tourists remarkably emerged alive to tell the tale. The couple's story of survival, recounted to AFP after they successfully fled Indonesia Tuesday, is one of the first to emerge from witnesses closest to the centre of the disaster which...

As sad as it is, the SE Asia earthquake is not the worst natural disaster ever. In 1991, Bangladesh suffered from Typhoon that killed about 140,000 people. Before that, in 1970, the country also lost 300,000 people from natural disaster. The SE Asia disaster, however, seems to be a significant one because there are many Westerners, including 'celebrities', died in this unfortunate event. Please look at the website that list of the worst 100 natural disaster in the 20th century. They also include famine and epidemic, though.

Magnitude 9.0 OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:49 UTC Question: Can we expect many aftershocks to this earthquake? Answer: There have been numerous aftershocks detected following the recent magnitude 9 megathrust earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center (USGS/NEIC) continues to record many newly occurred aftershocks. As of 1:00PM, MST, December 29, sixty-eight aftershocks have been cataloged. The largest occurred about three hours after the main shock and is now assigned a magnitude of 7.1. Thirteen of the aftershocks thus far cataloged have magnitudes of 6.0 or larger. There have been no...

SCARIEST TSUNAMI FOOTAGE I'VE SEEN: I've seen literally every frame of video that the networks have played. This tape I think indicates what was so seductive and dangerous about the Tsunami...the videographer shooting this footage gets swept away....Sharper Minds Daily...

The magnitude of human suffering caused by the 26 December South Asian Tsunami Disaster is only now becoming apparent. Tens of thousands are dead, entire communities have been washed out to sea with all souls, already crumbling drainage systems have been swamped, drinkable water sources have been contaminated, and housing has been destroyed on a massive scale. The need of the victims of this nightmare for medical supplies, fuel, food, water, and dry goods is immense, and will only grow in scope. It is our duty to help in this time of crisis. Funds are the immediate need. To this...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A military spokesman raised the estimated number of deaths in Sri Lanka caused by devastating tidal waves by more than 5,000 people on Monday, raising the death toll from the regional catastrophe to just under 20,000 people.