Earthquake Journal Entry
Huge Quake Rocks Indonesia (February 21, 2008)
The red circles show the epicenter of this week's earthquake near Sumatra. The purple line is the tectonic plate boundary between the Eurasian and Indo-Australian plates. USGS.
A massive magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck near the coast of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. At least three people were killed and twenty-five others were hurt. A tsunami warning was issued for the region but was canceled after two hours.
The quake struck the island of Simeulue off the coast of Sumatra. Its epicenter was 195 miles (310 km) southeast of Banda Aceh. The earthquake hit at a depth of 21 miles (34 km) below the surface.
Quake-prone Indonesia is part of the Ring of Fire where tectonic plates meet along subduction zones surrounding the Pacific Ocean. Sumatra was the site of the catastrophic magnitude 9.0 quake in December 2004. That quake and the tsunami it triggered killed over 230,000 people in nations around the Indian Ocean in one of history's worst-ever natural disasters. Sumatra was also smacked by a deadly magnitude 8.4 quake in September 2007 and one of magnitude 8.7 in March 2005.
