Strong quake hits Indian islands

PORT BLAIR, India - India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, devastated by last year's tsunami, were shaken by a strong quake today but officials said there was no danger of new killer waves hitting the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Thailand exercised caution and declared a tsunami alert but cancelled it less than 90 minutes later, while Indian officials said there was no danger of a huge wave like the one that hit last December.

"There is no tsunami warning from the Indian side," Indian Science and Technology Ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar told Reuters in New Delhi.

"The government is asking people to remain calm. The essential precondition for a tsunami is that the earthquake should be of 7.5 magnitude and this is below it."

Today's earthquake came seven months after the December 26 tsunami, triggered by a 9.15 magnitude earthquake. Some 227,000 are dead or missing after the December tsunami.

India's Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal also dismissed talk of a tsunami.

"Any talk of a tsunami as of now should not be taken heed of," Sibal told Indian television channels. "It has been two hours since the earthquake. If the tsunami was coming, it would have come by now."

The quake hit the area off India's eastern coast at 3.42pm GMT (3.42am Monday NZT) measuring 7.0, according to the US Geological Survey which initially urged authorities near its epicentre to be aware of the risk of local tsunamis.

But it also said on its website they could assume the danger had passed if no tsunamis were seen within an hour of the tremor, which hit at a depth of 10km.

All over the Andaman islands, people ran from their homes and gathered in open places. Police were put on high alert, but three hours after the earthquake said they had still not received any reports of casualties or damage.

"We could not understand what was happening," said Deepika Mazumbder on Rangat island in the Andaman chain. "But as soon as we realised that was a quake we ran for safer places."

Thailand issued a tsunami alert for six southern provinces hit by last year's tsunami and ordered thousands of people living along the Andaman Sea coastline to evacuate, but cancelled it soon after.

"We've found no tsunami that could endanger people's lives or damage property therefore we now call off the alert," Plodprasob Surasawadee, head of the National Disaster Warning Centre, said in a message broadcast on all television networks.

The quake hit about 1110km southwest of Bangkok. Last year's tsunami killed 5395 people in Thailand.

In Indonesia's Aceh, further to the south of the region where the quake struck and the area worst hit by massive waves on December 26, an official also initially spoke of the possibility of a tsunami reaching the province.

Residents in Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island said they felt the quake, but there appeared to be little panic. Since December 26, countless aftershocks have struck Aceh.

About 3500 people died and 2000 were missing and feared dead from last year's tsunami on the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which are situated on an undersea faultline that continues to Indonesia to the south.

The more than 550 islands in the Indian Ocean archipelago have experienced hundreds of aftershocks since December.

- REUTERS