M 8.7 Earthquake - March 2005, Indonesia
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Related events
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On 28 March at 16:09 local time, a great earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale occurred off the west coast of northern Sumatra, approximately 200 km south-east of the 26 December 2004 event, and 245 km south-west of the city of Medan. The earthquake, which occurred at a depth of just 30 km,1 was felt as far afield as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia the Cocos Islands, and northern Australia2. The length of the rupture was approximately 400 km and most of the vertical displacement occurred on land or in shallow water (as opposed to the 2004 event wherein most displacement took place in deep water)3. As a consequence, the resulting tsunami attained only 3m in height, and caused local damage, predominantly on the nearby island of Simeulue1.
The areas most severely affected were Nias Island, Nias Province, Capital Gunung Sitoli and Teluk Dalam. On the island of Simeulue, the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province was most severely impacted2 with around 1055,167 people being displaced2,4,5.
The main shock was followed within 24 hours by three aftershocks with Richter Magnitudes greater than 6, and a total of 628 aftershocks were detected in the two days following the main event3,5.
1 Sinadinovski, C. 2006. The Event of 26th of December 2004: The Biggest Earthquake in the World in the Last 40 years. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering. Vol. 4, pp 131-139
2 World Health Organisation. 2005. 28 March Earthquake: Situation Report 1.
http://www.who.int/hac/crises/idn/sitreps/2005/earthquake_01/en/index.ht...
3 Briggs, R.W, Sieh, K, Meltzner, A.J, Natawidjaja, D, Galetzka, J, Suwargadi, B, Hsu, Y, Simons, M, Hananto, N, Suprihanto, I, Prayudi, D, AvouacJ-P, Prawirodirdjo, L & Bock, Y. 2006. Deformation and Slip Along the Sunda Megathrust in the Great 2005 Nias-Simeulue Earthquake. Science. Vol. 311, pp 1897-1901
4 World Health Organisation. 2005. Emergency Situation report No. 4
http://w3.whosea.org/en/Section23/Section1108/Section1835/Section1926_91...
5 World Health Organisation. 2005. Emergency Situation Report No. 17. WHO, Indonesia
Event overview table
| No. Deaths | 915 |
| No. Injured | 75,499 |
| No. Affected | |
| Houses destroyed | |
| Houses damaged | 83,861 |
| Other damage | - Telecommunications |
| Economic cost |