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More quakes trigger fear, but no monster tsunami

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 14, 2007

PADANG, Indonesia - The ground shook so hard Yulinar had to grab a table to steady herself. Minutes later, she heard a warning crackling over the speakers of the neighborhood mosque - a tsunami could crash into her fishing village on Indonesia's Sumatra island at any minute.

But despite the intensity of the shallow undersea earthquake, no waves lashed the beach and the family shack was undamaged. A quirk of nature sent the full force of the tsunami out to sea, preventing a repeat of the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster that killed more than 230,000 people - most of them on Sumatra.

"We heard the mayor's voice and then ran up a hill," Yulinar, a mother of five, said of the 8.4-magnitude quake that shook Indonesia on Wednesday. "It was very bad. I was so scared a tsunami was coming."

A series of powerful earthquakes and aftershocks followed over a 24-hour period Wednesday and Thursday, damaging hundreds of homes, mosques and schools, and unleashing a 10-foot-high tsunami. At least 10 people were killed.

But the huge mass of water spawned by the initial 8.4-magnitude quake was pushed to sea rather than land, said Mike Turnbull, a seismologist at Australia's Central Queensland University. "It's a quirk of nature that this is how it happened."

A dozen houses were swept out to sea. Smaller waves were recorded farther down the coast.

Two other powerful temblors - magnitudes 7.9 and 7.1 - followed on Thursday off Sumatra and two weaker quakes were felt later. Several tsunami warnings were issued and later lifted.

[Last modified September 13, 2007, 23:44:43]