Series of Massive Earthquakes Rattle Indonesia

Indonesia was rocked by another massive earthquake just after 11 p.m. Monday night. The quake was an 8.7 magnitude temblor that shattered buildings and sent residents fleeing for their lives in the fear of another tsunami. In the hours that followed the initial quake, a series of aftershocks hit the region, with the most recent, a 5.8 magnitude quake, occurring a few minutes after 12:00 noon on Tuesday. All of the earthquakes have been centered in the same general geographical area a couple hundred miles off Banda Aceh, 60 miles south on the same fault line as the December 2004 quake, and all have occurred at about the same depth of 20 miles.

The Indonesian government says the quake prompted official safety warnings of a possible tsunami. The warnings triggered panic in the streets, amid horrifying memories of last year’s disaster that killed more than 174,000 people. The Indonesian island of Nias took the brunt of the devastating earthquake, many homes and buildings were destroyed, and crews are slowly going through the rubble to determine the total death toll. So far over 350 bodies have been found on Nias alone, and experts have said that they fear at least 2,000 people in the area affected by Monday’s quake are estimated to have died. A reconnaissance plane flying over the island found that nearly 30% of the buildings in its largest city were lying in ruin, and several fires were still smoldering amid the destruction. As a villager on Nias said, "No one had a chance to run."

Aid groups from around the globe are gathering resources and rushing to deliver supplies and troops back to Indonesia again. Workers and troops from many countries were still in the region after helping with recovery efforts from the earthquake and tsunami that happened the day after Christmas last year, but their efforts had been scaled back in recent weeks. Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said that his country will send an air medical evacuation team to Indonesia, as well as setting up a field hospital to treat the wounded. Other nations, including the United States, have offered to provide help in whatever way is needed.

According to Patrick Leahy of the U. S. Geological Survey, this week’s quake was smaller than the December 2004 quake that triggered the disastrous tsunamis, and the earth ruptured in a different direction, to the southeast. "It was a different segment of the same fault, but because of that direction and other variables-- for example the depth of water where the earthquake occurred, the materials -- all of those factors really came to play in terms of whether it would create a tsunami or not." Michele Lipner, a spokesperson for U.N. Humanitarian Affairs in Banda Aceh, said "The initial information we’re getting is that it is perhaps not as serious as was first anticipated." Lipner said despite the overall structure damage on Nias, the nearby island of Simeulue does not appear to be seriously damaged.

This earthquake marks the first time in more than a century of recording seismic events that two quakes of such massive intensity have happened so close together, says Kerry Sieh, a geology professor at the California Institute of Technology. According to Sieh, there have been 12 "great" earthquakes since 1096, and Monday’s quake is included in that group although it was only about a third as powerful as the December quake.