|
One of the most powerful earthquakes in the planet hit the Asian Continent with its epicenter at Ach Indonesia. Some of the tsunamis reached as far as 1,600 kilometers (91,000 miles) from the epicenter of the 9.0 magnitude quake, which was located about 160 kilometers (100 miles) off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).
The quake struck about 7 a.m. Sunday (midnight GMT Saturday), according to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Center.
The tsunamis also left thousands injured, thousands missing and hundreds of thousands homeless in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
It is the fourth-largest earthquake since such measurements began in 1899, according to the NEIC, tying with a 1952 quake in Kamchatka, Russia.
More than 4,500 people have been reported dead in Sri Lanka. Most of them, authorities said, were in the eastern district of Batticaloa. Thousands were missing and more than a half million displaced.
In southern Sri Lanka, 200 prisoners escaped when the waves swept away a high-security prison in Matara.
Witnesses in the eastern Sri Lankan port city Trincomalee reported 14 meter (40-foot) waves hitting inland as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles).
The Sri Lankan government declared a state of emergency, and, along with the government of the Maldives, has requested international assistance, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.
INDIAN HIGH COMMISSION
COLOMBO CONTROL ROOM
00-94-11-2422788, 00-94-11-2327587
|
