UK researchers issue new Asian quake threat warning
A build-up of stress on faults in Sumatra following the Indonesian earthquake is likely to trigger another large quake and perhaps a tsunami.
That is the claim made in Nature by a team from the University of Ulster, UK.
The slip that caused last year's devastating quake placed increased stress on the Sumatran fault and on the adjacent undersea Sunda Trench.
A new rupture could trigger a magnitude 7-7.5 quake on land and a magnitude 8-8.5 quake beneath the sea, they say.
Read the Full Article at BBC News
That is the claim made in Nature by a team from the University of Ulster, UK.
The slip that caused last year's devastating quake placed increased stress on the Sumatran fault and on the adjacent undersea Sunda Trench.
A new rupture could trigger a magnitude 7-7.5 quake on land and a magnitude 8-8.5 quake beneath the sea, they say.
Read the Full Article at BBC News
Unknown at 8:41:00 pm |
BIG EARTHQUAKE FELT AT 12.10AM MALAYSIAN TIME IN MALAYSIA
Witness accounts say the tremor was worse than that of Dec 26!
Read updates here http://tsunamipenang.blogspot.com/
Will try my best to update with the latest breaking information.
Earthquake measuring 8.2 reported off coast of Indonesia near Medan on the same fault line as quake that caused December’s deadly tsunami.
Indonesia local time 11:09:37 PM on Monday, March 28, 2005.
Another tsunami?
In Japan, at least five major quakes in the Nankaido segment of the Nankai subduction zone have been accompanied by similar events on the linked Tonankai/Tokai segment within five years - and three of the subsequent quakes ruptured in the same years as their precursors.
The magnitude 7.4 Izmit earthquake in Turkey in 1999 triggered the magnitude 7.1 Duzce earthquake three months later. Worryingly, the Anatolian fault - where these quakes occurred - has a very similar structure to the Sumatran fault.
Banda Aceh was near the earthquake's epicentre
Some researchers believe large earthquakes occur at the Sunda trench on a cycle of 200 years, which is determined by stress loading at the subduction zone. The last big event occurred about 150 years ago, but Professor McCloskey said the recent quake could have accelerated this cycle.
"The amount of extra stress could be equivalent to 50 or 60 years of loading. But I personally am not convinced by this theory," he said.
A large earthquake at the undersea Sunda trench had the potential to cause another tsunami, the University of Ulster researcher added.
But Professor Nick Ambraseys of Imperial College London, UK, expressed concern about the Nature report:
"False alarms and inaccurate timing could create more problems than already exist," he said.
"There is nothing in their article that enables, with any degree of certainty, the prediction of the immediacy of the next earthquake."
The authors of the research paper say this makes a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean all the more urgent.
Muhammad Sufyan
Web Developer at Fake Degrees