Another Huge Quake in Asia

A magnitude 8.7 earthquake struck off the northern coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island late Monday, killing hundreds of people, authorities said, and triggering panic and mass evacuations in coastal areas leveled by December’s tsunami.

Officials in the United States, India, Thailand and Sri Lanka issued tsunami warnings but withdrew them after no giant waves appeared. Experts said the undersea quake triggered waves 4 to 12 inches high in different parts of the Indian Ocean.

The island of Nias off the west coast of Sumatra was reported to have suffered the greatest damage from Monday’s temblor, which geologists said was an aftershock of the magnitude 9.0 quake Dec. 26 that caused the tsunami. A popular spot for surfers, Nias suffered more than 300 deaths in the December disaster.

The Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs reported today that the death toll in Monday’s quake was between 200 and 300.

“It is predicted, and it is still a rough estimate, that the number of the victims of dead may be between 1,000 and 2,000,” Vice President Jusuf Kalla said in an interview with El Shinta radio.

Initial reports indicated that the town of Gunungsitoli on Nias, home to 27,000 people, was severely damaged.

“From the window I see very high flames,” Father Raymond Lias said, according to MISNA, a Rome-based missionary news service. “The town is completely destroyed.”

The quake, which struck at 11:09 p.m., lasted more than two minutes and caused damage as far away as the city of Medan on the east coast of Sumatra. Geologists said the temblor struck 110 miles to the south of December’s quake, along the same fault line. Aftershocks continued through the night and this morning.

“My legs and knees were shaking,” said Popon Anarita, an aid worker who fled from the fifth floor of a hotel in Medan. “Other guests were outside already and I noticed many of them wore pajamas or only underpants. But laughing was the last thing on my mind.”

In Banda Aceh, the city hit hardest three months ago, Monday’s temblor caused widespread panic. Residents fled their houses as the earth shook, many of them crying and praying in the streets.

The quake was so strong that people could not stand and had to sit or lie on the ground. It knocked out power, shrouding the city in darkness.

After the ground stopped shaking, many people rushed to higher ground out of fear that another tsunami would strike the city. Some fled without shirts or shoes. Overloaded motorbikes, cars and trucks, some with people hanging on the outside, poured out of the city, causing a midnight traffic jam. Several injuries were reported from vehicle accidents.

Police and religious leaders in Banda Aceh used mosque microphones to advise residents that no waves were coming and that they should not panic.

The Dec. 26 quake and tsunami killed more than 175,000 people in 12 countries, and at least 106,000 more are listed as missing. The majority of the victims were in Aceh, the isolated northernmost province of Indonesia where rebels have been fighting for independence for nearly three decades.

About half of Banda Aceh was destroyed by the tsunami and entire families were wiped out. Tens of thousands of Acehnese remain homeless and living in camps.

Despite the magnitude of the earthquake Monday, there were no immediate reports of fatalities in the city.

Two people were reportedly killed in Sri Lanka as they fled from the coast.

“We are now on higher ground, so if the quake causes a tsunami that reaches here, we will just accept it and leave it in the hands of God,” said Mohammed Husnul, 9, who was among the thousands who fled inland from Banda Aceh.

Initially recorded as 8.2 but revised to 8.7, Monday’s quake was “the biggest aftershock we’ve ever had in history,” said Kerry Sieh, a Caltech geologist who has studied the region.

“That makes it one of the giant earthquakes of the century,” he said. “This quake was large enough to produce major tsunamis and major shaking.”

Like the earthquake three months ago, Monday’s temblor occurred along the fault known as the Sunda megathrust, a 3,500-mile-long crack in the Earth’s crust that stretches from the eastern edge of the Himalayas down the western coast of Australia.

The same forces were at work in both quakes: The India plate to the west dived beneath the Burma plate to the east, pushing the island of Sumatra another 1 or 2 meters above sea level, Sieh said.

Monday’s quake involved a 180-mile-long portion of the fault, significantly less than in the December quake, which involved a section more than 600 miles long. The epicenter was miles below sea level. “This looks like a fraternal twin of the Dec. 26 earthquake,” Sieh said.

December’s quake, however, was at least twice as strong as Monday’s temblor.

Many experts were certain at first that the earthquake would cause another tsunami and they immediately issued warnings. Gauges deployed around the Indian Ocean to measure tsunami activity recorded 4-inch and 9-inch waves in the Cocos Islands, a 6-inch wave in the Maldives and a 12-inch wave in Sri Lanka, said Theresa Eisenman, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Silver Spring, Md.

“It did create a tsunami, but it’s very small,” said Stuart Sipkin, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. “You probably wouldn’t even notice it if you were sitting on the beach.”

Nevertheless, some experts were concerned that destructive waves might have hit remote parts of the Sumatran coast close to the epicenter.

“There’s got to be a local tsunami,” said Eric Geist, a geophysicist at the USGS in Menlo Park, Calif. “All the reports are saying there’s no tsunami, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we wake up tomorrow and find there’s some villages destroyed.”

Historically, the Indonesia region experiences a pair of giant earthquakes every 200 years or so, Sieh said.

An 8.2 quake in 1797 was followed in 1833 by a second quake measuring 8.7 or 8.8, he said. Smaller quakes followed in 1861 and 1907.

“What’s going on is a redistribution of stress in the area as it tries to come back to equilibrium” after the Dec. 26 quake, Sipkin said.

President Bush, who returned to Washington on Monday from a vacation in Texas, was briefed on the quake as federal officials dispatched envoys to find out what assistance the U.S. could provide.

U.S. officials were accused of responding tepidly after the December tsunami. On Monday, they held conference calls and meetings, positioning themselves to act swiftly if needed.

“We’re applying what we’ve learned from the previous earthquake so that we can be prepared to be responsive quickly and in a meaningful way,” State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.

Times staff writer Paddock reported from Kuta, Indonesia, special correspondent Tiba from Banda Aceh and staff writer Kaplan from Los Angeles. Also contributing to this report were Dinda Jouhana of The Times’ Jakarta Bureau and staff writer Paul Richter in Washington.