Tsunami warning in Indonesia

madds

Ok, my younger sis is in Thailand at the moment and I got a call from her at 7am this morning to say she had heard reports that a tsunami warning had been called but she wasn't sure of the details (she had just got onto a boat and was 10 mins into a journey between 2 islands off the coast of Thailand).

I checked cnn.com and found the following -

CCN report

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- A powerful earthquake off eastern Indonesia triggered a tsunami warning Thursday and sent panicked residents fleeing from buildings, authorities and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of damage as a result of the magnitude-7 quake, which struck under the Maluku Sea at a depth of 20 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.

The quake's epicenter was more than 130 miles north of Ternate city.

Indonesia's geological agency and the Pacific Tsunami Warning center issued tsunami warnings following the quake. National TV stations broke into their programming to relay the alerts.

"We felt a strong tremor for almost a minute, people ran in panic from buildings, said George Rajaloa, a resident in Ternate. "Children are crying and their mothers are screaming, but there is no damage in my area."

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Looking at where the island of Ternate is in relation to Thailand, can anyone tell me what the likely path of a resultant tsunami would be? Which islands/coastal areas would be hit?

I've attached a map of the area indicating where the quake hit.

Thanks.

Tazzle

I wouldn't worry;

The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0, triggered a tsunami warning, but the alert was quickly lifted after it became clear no destructive waves had been generated, the country’s geophysics agency said.

I think people have just become, understandably, hypersensitive to the word tsunami, the last line of that paragraph you posted sums it up, there's alot of seismic activity in that area.

edit: what's this got to do with weather though?

madds

Thanks Tazzle. Yeah, it has been downgraded. I've since been on the phone to my sis and she says the locales are going about their business as normal. So she's gone out on the beer.

The reason why i posted it to the Weather forum was I thought that you guys/gals in here may have access to sites which would display the latest information on happenings of this nature (storms, tsunami, etc.).

Made sense to me at 8am this morning.

Thanks again.