A magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck under the seabed in the Nicobar islands, causing tremors that were felt a thousand kilometres away on the Indian mainland, where many were shaken awake in the dead of the night causing some to flee their homes in panic. The quake hit early Sunday morning local time, with the epicentre less than 350 nautical miles from Phuket in Thailand.
Distance from epicentre to Phuket is 350nm
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Our yacht Scorpio is presently in Phuket, but fortunately hauled out high on dry land. I am in Finland myself, trying to check various sources on the Internet to determine the risk for tsunamis in the area.
The Pacific Tsunami Center in Hawaii and the Indian Ocean Information Centre have issued tsunami warnings and watches, but the alerts were later cancelled. Only a mild surge in sea levels of around 50 centimetres were expected.
This area was badly hit by the 2004 tsunami which was triggered by an earthquake off Sumatra and sent giant waves crushing across the region. 220,000 people were killed, most of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh on Sumatra. Thousands were killed also in Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar and Thailand.
The Andaman Sea witnesses frequent eartquakes caused by the meeting of the Indian tectonic plate with the Burmese micro plate along an area known as the Andaman Trench.
