Powerful Earthquake Strikes Nicobar Islands

A powerful earthquake has struck the Nicobar islands, the US Geological Survey reported today, triggering tsunami warnings in the Indian Ocean.

The quake measured 7.0 on the Richter scale and struck at 9.12pm local time (16.42BST) at a depth of six miles under the Indian Ocean.

The epicentre was 85 miles off Misha of the Nicobar islands and 260 miles south of Port Blair, capital of the Andaman islands.

"The quake was felt in all the islands of the Andaman and Nicobar chain," a police official told Reuters.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The chain is a remote archipelago of 572 islands lying between India and Thailand. It was devastated by last year's tsunami on Boxing Day.

In Port Blair, hundreds of people ran out of their homes in panic and rushed to open places.

The Indian government said 3,000 people died in tsunami last year, but aid agencies say that figure was based on out-of-date voters' lists, and failed to take into account the thousands of illegal migrants living on the islands.

They say that on Car Nicobar Island alone, 80% of which was destroyed, as many as 20,000 may have perished.

The islands are situated on an undersea fault line that continues to Indonesia to the south. The island chain has experienced hundreds of aftershocks since the Boxing Day quake.