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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.