Padang facing threat of 8.8-magnitude earthquake

While the people of West Sumatra are still shattered by the 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit the province, killing over 600 residents with hundreds of others still missing, they now face the grim prospect of a stronger earthquake at 8.8 on the Richter scale.

Although the experts have admitted through the print and electronic media that no one nor technology could predict the exact date of the earthquake, they opined that it would be more devastating, like the tsunami of December 2004 which killed more than 200,000 people in several countries.

A geologist from the Indonesian Institute of Science, Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, said pressure had created faultlines around Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, during the series of earthquakes off the Sumatran coast in the last few years.

"The 7.6-magnitude earthquake at 5.16pm on Sept 30 that shook Padang could not be categorised as large-scale. We are talking about the possibility of an earthquake of over 8.0 on the Richter scale, a megacrush accompanied by a tsunami," he said in a statement issued by the institute.

Danny who has been studying the Mentawai fault zone off the coast of Sumatra for 12 years together with fellow researcher Prof Kerry Sieh from the Nanyang Technology University (NTU), Singapore, believed that the pressure built-up could cause a 8.8-magnitude earthquake.

"Theoretically, I can say that this major earthquake may happen tomorrow, the day after, next month or next year. At the latest, it may occur in the next 10 years.

"Personally, I am worried if the earthquake happens in the next few months or next year. But as academicians, we are always given surprises by natural phenomena. It's difficult to say about such happenings," he said.

In 2004, an undersea earthquake at 9.15 on the Richter scale with its epicentre 600km north of Padang, caused a tsunami that swept across parts of countries around the Indian Ocean, with Aceh in Indonesia being the most devastated.

Danny said a 8.8-magnitude would create tsunami waves of four to 10 metres high smashing Padang, which has a population of about 4.4 million and has been shaken by earthquakes and tremors in the last few years.

News of the impending 8.8-magnitude earthquake had also widely spread throughout Jakarta via SMS and Twitter, with the rumour rife about the Indonesian capital with a population of about 12 million also to be hit by an earthquake following last Wednesday's.

However, this was immediately refuted by the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics.



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