Earthquake of magnitude 9.0 off the west coast of northern Sumatra.
Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:53 UTC - Coordinated Universal Time. Preliminary Earthquake Report World Data Center for Seismology, Denver Colorado |
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Magnitude | 9.0 Richter | ||||
Date-Time |
Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:53 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time - 07:58:53 AM local time at epicenter | ||||
Location | 3.30N 95.87E | ||||
Depth | 30 kilometers | ||||
Region | Off the west coast of northern Sumatra | ||||
Reference |
250 km (155 miles) SSE of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia 310 km (190 miles) W of Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia 1260 km (780 miles) SSW of BANGKOK, Thailand 1590 km (990 miles) NW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia |
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Location Quality Parameters |
Nst=283, Nph=283, Dmin=652.3 km, Rmss=1.07 sec, Erho=6.1 km, Erzz=0 km, Gp=29.4 degrees | ||||
Source | USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) | ||||
Description Writtten on dec 28: At least 79,900 people were killed by the earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia. Tsunamis killed at least 41,000 people in Sri Lanka, 10,000 in India, 4,000 in Thailand, 120 in Somalia, 90 in Myanmar, 66 in Malaysia, 46 in Maldives, 10 in Tanzania, 2 in Bangladesh, 1 in Seychelles and 1 in Kenya. The earthquake was felt (8) at Banda Aceh and Medan (5), Sumatra (2-4) and in parts of Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. A mud volcano near Baratang, Andaman Islands began erupting on December 28. The earthquake generated a large tsunami that caused widespread damage over countries bordering the Indian ocena, including Sri Lanka, India, Thailand Phuket,Malaysia, Andaman Islands, and Maldives. As of jan 06 2005, more than 140000 lost their lives and millions were homeless. United Nations hosted a convention at Jakarta Indonesia on jan 6 to raise 1 billion US$ aid for the victims. Tsunamis caused damage in Madagascar and Mauritius and also occurred on Cocos Island and Reunion. The tsunami crossed into the Pacific Ocean and was recorded in New Zealand and along the west coast of South and North America. This is the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and is the largest since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake. The devastating megathrust earthquake of December 26, 2004, occurred on the interface of the India and Burma plates In the region of the earthquake, the India plate moves toward the northeast at a rate of about 6 cm/year relative to the Burma plate. This results in Mid ocean rifts occur in central pacific region; from these ridges, plates start separating and molten magma flows towards east and west ending in subduction zones when colliding with the Asian and American continents. Preliminary locations of larger aftershocks following the megathrust earthquake show that approximately 1200 km of the plate boundary slipped as a result of the earthquake. By comparison with other large megathrust earthquakes, the width of the causative fault-rupture was likely over one-hundred km. From the size of the earthquake, it is likely that the average displacement on the fault plane was about fifteen meters. The sea floor overlying the thrust fault would have been uplifted by several meters as a result of the earthquake and this probably caused the large tsunami. The above estimates of fault dimensions and displacement will be refined in the near future as the result of detailed analyses of the earthquake waves. The world's largest recorded earthquakes have all been megathrust events, occurring where one tectonic plate subducts beneath another. These include:
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