Case study on Earthquake in Indonesia 2012

The powerful undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra this week was a once in 2,000 years event, and although it resulted in only a few deaths, it increases the risks of a killer quake in the region, a leading seismologist said.
Wednesday's 8.6 magnitude quake and a powerful aftershock were "strike-slip" quakes and the largest of that type recorded, Kerry Sieh, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, told Reuters. "It's a really an exceptionally large and rare event," he said. "Besides it being the biggest strike-slip earthquake ever recorded, the aftershock is the second biggest as far as we can tell," said Sieh, who has studied the seismically active, and deadly, fault zones around Sumatra for years. Strike-slip quakes involve the horizontal movement of colliding earth plates, and are typically less powerful than those where there is vertical movement. They are also less likely to trigger big tsunamis, or tidal waves. A magnitude 9.1 quake in roughly the same region on Boxing Day in 2004 decimated Aceh province on Sumatra and killed over 230,000 people in 13 countries around the Indian Ocean. Sumatra, the westernmost island in the sprawling Indonesian archipelago, has a history of powerful quakes and tsunamis, most triggered by an offshore zone along its entire length, where the IndianAustralian tectonic plate is forced under the Eurasian plate. This creates a deep ocean trench as one plate slides under the other at a rate of several centimeters a year. In this zone, called the Sunda megathrust, stress builds up when the subducting IndianAustralian plate bends the Eurasian plate like a spring board as it moves down into the Earth's crust. Eventually enough stress builds up that the edge of Eurasian plate suddenly jolts upward, triggering an earthquake. The sudden uplift of the seafloor and huge pulse of seawater triggers a tsunami. Over the centuries, repeated magnitude 8 and 9 quakes have struck along portions of the megathrust zone off the coast of Sumatra, flattening towns and killing thousands of people. STING IN THE TALE Wednesday's event was different, Sieh said, because it occurred further west from the megathrust zone in a fault that runs north-south. This strike-slip fault involved a sudden horizontal movement of the Indian and Australian plates along hundreds of kilometers, preliminary data suggest. Sieh said the Indian plate and Australian plate are moving relative to each other horizontally at about 1 cm a year. "If all of that ... is taken up on this one fault and if you make some crude calculations about how much slip occurred during this earthquake, say 20 meters. It means that this earthquake shouldn't happen more than once every 2,000 years." Wednesday's quake caused few casualties and triggered very small waves, despite its magnitude. But the sting in the tale is that it likely to have increased stress on the plate boundaries near Aceh, increasing the risks of another major earthquake in the same area as the 2004 disaster.

In addition, research by Sieh and colleagues published in 2010 showed that the 2004 Aceh quake only relieved about half the stress that has built up over the centuries along a 400 km portion of the megathrust faultline. That makes another major quake in the area a matter of time. Adding to concerns, further south along another 700 km portion of the megathrust fault under the Mentawai islands, Sieh and colleagues in a separate 2008 research said so much stress was building up on this section that one or more major quakes were likely within years. The Mentawai islands, a popular surfing destination, are a chain of about 70 islands off the western coast of Sumatra. They face the city of Padang on Sumatra, home to about one million people and likely to be in the path of any tsunami that is triggered. "I am very confident that we are very likely to have within the next few decades to have this great Mentawai earthquake that will have a magnitude at least as big as yesterday's," said Sieh. And when it does, history shows there will be more than one quake within a few years. He said a magnitude 8.4 quake in 2007 that struck this part of the megathrust relieved only a small portion of the pent-up pressure. The last time it ruptured was a magnitude 9 quake in 1833 and an 8.4 quake in 1797. "We've had so many big earthquakes around in Sumatra in the past few years that it seems like an awful lot of the faults around there seem ready to go."

A major earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia Wednesday afternoon with a reported magnitude of 8.6, sparking tsunami warnings for Australia and coastal nations across Southeast Asia, central Asia and parts of the Arabian Gulf. Experts cautioned that a tsunami warning signals a potential for an oversized tidal wave, not necessarily that it is imminent. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the powerful quake was centered 20 miles beneath the ocean floor around 308 miles from the capital of the Aceh province of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Experts said early indications were that the quake, which struck around 2:30 p.m. local time, was caused by a horizontal shift in the earths plates of a type less likely to cause severe tsunamis than vertical shifts, which tend to displace larger volumes of water. Footage showed terrified Indonesians pouring into the street, trying to make calls on their cellphones and hugging each other in terror, some going back into buildings to find lost colleagues. An enormous 9.1-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia in late 2004 in roughly the same area triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed an estimated 230,000 people, nearly three quarters of them in Aceh.

Residents as far away as Thailand and southern India said they felt the temblor. Buildings were moving about, twice in the space of 10 minutes, said Lakshmi Vijayakumar, founder of a suicide hotline in Chennai, the capital of Indias southern Tamil Nadhu state, adding that theyd received an increase in panicked calls.
People were scared, she added. Many came into the streets, particularly from high-rise buildings. Glass has shattered. She added that her cousin in a high-rise building along the shore was told to evacuate against a possible tsunami they she was told might hit at 5 p.m. But so far I dont think theres too much property damage, she said.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) -- Two massive earthquakes triggered back-to-back tsunami warnings for Indonesia on Wednesday, sending panicked residents fleeing to high ground in cars and on the backs of motorcycles. No deadly waves or serious damage resulted, and a watch for much of the Indian Ocean was lifted after a few hours. Women and children cried in Aceh, where memories are still raw of a 2004 tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province alone. Others screamed "God is great" as they poured from their homes or searched frantically for separated family members. Patients were wheeled out of hospitals, some still lying in their beds with drips attached to their arms. And at least one hotel guest was slightly injured when he jumped out of his window. The U.S. Geological Survey said the first 8.6-magnitude quake was a shallow 22 kilometers (14 miles), hitting in the sea 270 miles (435 kilometers) from Aceh's provincial capital. An alert that followed from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii advised countries all along the rim of the Indian Ocean, from Australia and India to as far off as Africa, that a seismically charged wave could head their way. Two deadly tsunamis in the last decade the most recent off Japan just one year ago have left the world much better prepared. Sirens sounded along coastlines and warnings spread like wildfire by mobile phone text messaging. Though often chaotic, evacuations began immediately with streets clogged with traffic, especially in Aceh.

The only wave to hit, though, was less than 30 inches (80 centimeters) high, rolling to Indonesia's emptied coastline. Just as the region was sighing relief, an 8.2-magnitude aftershock followed. "We just issued another tsunami warning," Prih Harjadi, from Indonesia's geophysics agency, told TVOne in a live interview. He told his countrymen to stay clear of western coasts. Residents in Aceh could hardly believe it. "What did we do to deserve this?" cried Aisyah Husaini, 47, who lost both her parents and a son in the 2004 tsunami. "What sins have we committed?" "I'm so scared, I don't want to lose my family again," she said, clinging to her two children in a mosque in Banda Aceh, where hundreds of people sheltered. Again, though, the threat quickly passed. Experts said Wednesday's quakes did not have the potential to create massive tsunamis because the friction and shaking occurred horizontally, not vertically. The earth's tectonic plates slid against each other, creating more of a vibration in the water. In contrast, mega-thrust quakes cause the seabed to rise or drop vertically, displacing massive amounts of water and sending towering waves racing across the ocean at jetliner speeds. Roger Musson, seismologist at the British geological survey who has studied Sumatra's fault lines, said initially he'd been "fearing the worst." "But as soon as I discovered what type of earthquake it was ... I felt a lot better." The tremors were felt in neighboring Malaysia, where high-rise buildings shook, and Thailand, India and Bangladesh. Those countries, Sri Lanka and the Maldives evacuated buildings and beaches and readied relief efforts in case of disaster. The World Meteorological Organization said communication systems set up after the 2004 tsunami appeared to have worked well. "Our records indicate that all the national meteorological services in the countries at

risk by this tsunami have received the warnings in under five minutes," said Maryam Golnaraghi, the head of WMO's disaster risk reduction program. The alert was sent out by U.S. National Weather Service, which operates a tsunami warning station in Hawaii, she said. Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity. The giant 9.1-magnitude quake and tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, killed 230,000 people in about a dozen nations.