Indonesia earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami warning

A large earthquake measuring 8.6 in magnitude struck earlier this morning at a depth of 33km under the sea off Indonesia’s northern Aceh province. The quake triggered a tsunami watch alert across the Indian Ocean.

The DEC is monitoring the unfolding situation; we will update this blog post if there is a significant impact in the area or if our members, who are working in the area, report that the local population has been significantly affected.

The region is regularly affected by earthquakes, one of the biggest in 2004 led to the DEC Tsunami Appeal.

The US Geological Survey (USGS), which documents earthquakes across the globe, said the Aceh quake was about 495km from the Banda Aceh, the provinces’ capital. Reports say a tsunami has been generated measuring 17cm (6.7in) heading for the coast of Aceh. A spokesperson of the USGS has told the BBC that the nature of this quake is less likely to cause a destructive tsunami. The earthquake was initially an 8.9 but revised down to 8.6.

2.20pm update: The tsunami warning is now lifted for the Indian Ocean. The disaster alerts, put in place after the 2004 tsunami, to evacuate people from high risk areas appears to have been affective. In addition to this our members were able to move swiftly into action with assessments in the areas affected by a potential disaster.