Multiple earthquake, tsunami hits Southern Asia, thousands killed
Colombo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Surging sea waters and tremors have struck a wide area around the Indian Ocean, killing thousands of people in southern and eastern Asia. The huge earthquake hit southern Asia on Sunday, setting off a tsunami that drowned hundreds in Sri Lanka and India, sent Indonesians rushing to high ground and washed away bathers on the Thai tourist island of Phuket.
The earthquake of magnitude 8.5 first struck at 7:59 a.m. (0059 GMT) off the coast of the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra and swung north with multiple tremors into the Andaman islands in the Indian Ocean.
A wall of water up to 10 meters high set off by the tremor swept into Indonesia, over the coast of Sri Lanka and India and along the southern Thai tourist island of Phuket, leaving at least 650 people feared dead, officials said.
"Nothing like this has ever happened in our country before," said Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The earthquake was the world's biggest since 1965. Geophysicists say it was multiple earthquakes along the same faultline. The worst-hit area appeared to be the tourist region of Sri Lanka's south and east. Many hotels are badly flooded.
At least 500 were feared dead in Sri Lanka, the National Disaster Management Center said. An official in eastern Trincomalee said 3,000 people had been displaced and six villages destroyed.
Because of the huge tsunami, along the southern Indian coast, as many as 74 people were killed and many injured. Officials said 400 fishermen were missing in south India. In Chennai, formerly Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, 34 were dead and 14 admitted in hospital.
Dozens more were dead in Prakasam district in southern Andhra Pradesh and in Machalipatnam district, taking the total death toll in the state to 40, officials said.
The wave swept into the low-lying Maldive islands whose coral atolls are a magnet for tourists, flooding two-thirds of the capital Male,
The world's worst tsunami in recent history struck on July 17, 1998, when three tsunamis ripped through Papua New Guinea's northwest coast, killing 2,500.
As many as 65 people were killed on Sunday in Indonesia's Aceh province on northern Sumatra island. Most of them were drowned by the waves, while that hundreds of houses had been swept away.
Indonesia's geophysics and meteorology office put the epicenter of the earthquake at 149 km (90 miles) off the southern coast of the island and said the earthquake measured 6.8 on the open-ended Richter scale.
Residents said waves as high as five meters (15 ft) struck the northern coast, killing at least nine, causing widespread damage and sending thousands fleeing in panic.
Residents said buildings collapsed and people fled their houses. In some parts the water was up to a chest level.
In the Thailand tourist site of Phuket at least one person was killed, four were missing and 100 injured when the wave, 5 to 10 meters (16 to 32 feet) high, crashed onto beaches lined with luxury hotels at the peak of the tourist season.
More than 10 people were killed and 100 injured or missing in the southern Thai province of Phang Nga.
The prime minister called for the evacuation of areas hit by a tsunami wave in three southern provinces, including Phuket.
The death toll in the entire area is expected to grow throughout the day as more bodies are discovered.
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