Quake in Indian Ocean Kills 500

A massive earthquake rocked a wide swath of South and Southeast Asia today, triggering tidal waves and flooding that killed more than 500 people in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand and Malaysia, officials said. Tens of thousands were displaced.

The highest toll was in Sri Lanka, off India’s southeastern tip, where military officials said 300 people died. At least 94 were reported killed in an Indonesian province, 74 in southern India, 20 in Thailand and seven in Malaysia. The casualty figures seemed likely to rise as reports from more remote areas became available.

The epicenter of the 8 a.m. quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey reported had a magnitude of 8.5, was in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, 1,000 miles northwest of Jakarta, the capital.

It was the strongest earthquake since an 8.7-magnitude quake in Alaska in February 1965, according to historical data on the USGS website.

In Sri Lanka, 20-foot-high tsunamis triggered by the quake hit the eastern areas of Mutur and Trincomalee, said D. Rodrigo, a Mutur district official.

Flash floods shut the port in the capital, Colombo, and displaced thousands of people in dozens of villages along the eastern and southern coasts, police and witnesses said.

“It was very scary when I saw the waves hitting the port,” said R. Mohammed, who runs a transport business at the port.

At least 94 people were reported killed in Indonesia’s Aceh province, on the northwestern tip of Sumatra, hospital and local officials said.

Bireun district head Mustofa Glanggang said 50 people were killed there. Thirty-five bodies were brought to Cut Meutia Hospital in the northern city of Lhokseumawe, an official there said. Nine other people were killed in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, witnesses told a local radio station.

A spokesman for state-owned Garuda Airlines said Banda Aceh’s airport, several miles from the coast, was flooded and that planes were unable to land there. The spokesman did not say how deep the water was.

Bustami, a Lhokseumawe resident who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said: “The weather is fine with no clouds, there was no warning and suddenly the sea water just hit the city. In some parts the water was up to a chest level.”

In southern India, at least 74 people were killed and many injured when a tsunami hit the area, hospital and government officials said.

“Thirty-four are dead and 14 are admitted in hospital,” said an official at the Government Royapettah Hospital in Madras, capital of Tamil Nadu state.

Another 40 people died in Andhra Pradesh state, authorities said. More than 250 fishermen were missing at sea, said the state’s chief secretary, Mohan Kanda.

Twenty people died and many were missing in popular southern Thailand resorts, said Sorajak Chusaeng, of the Narenthorn Center of the Public Health Ministry.

The center reported that people were swept away in Phuket by a tsunami with waves as high as 16 feet. Another 600 people were reported injured, and Thai officials ordered some areas evacuated.

Buildings swayed in the Thai capital, Bangkok, some 1,240 miles from Sumatra, and in Singapore, 590 miles from the epicenter. Damage was reported on India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal.

On the Malaysian resort island of Penang, seven people died and two were missing after being swept away by tidal waves, police said.

Meanwhile, authorities in Bangladesh reported that an aftershock, with a magnitude of 7.36, had struck the southern port city of Chittagong.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The quake came three days after an 8.1 quake shook the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica. It caused no serious damage or injury.

Quakes reaching a magnitude of 8 are very rare.

One rocked Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that stuck off the coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.