-
Related
India issued a tsunami warning after a large earthquake off the coast of Indonesia and ordered people to be evacuated from coastal areas, but said it had no reports of any killer waves.
"We have issued a tsunami alert," Sanjaya Baru, spokesman for the prime minister's office, told Reuters. "The government is fully alert but we have no evidence or report that a tsunami will come or is coming."
Authorities in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andrha Pradesh and Kerala, which were struck by a tsunami triggered by a 9.0 magnitude quake on December 26, said they had ordered people to be evacuated from some coastal areas as a precaution.
Fishermen were also told not to put to sea, and the army and navy were put on alert, officials said.
"We have asked the district collectors to evacuate people in the vicinity of 500 metres from the coastline in Tamil Nadu," State Secretary for Relief Operations R. Santanam told NDTV.
In the state capital, Madras, hundreds of people living in fishermen's colonies were moved from the coast to schools and marriage halls in the city.
Police fanned out along the coast chasing people, especially curious onlookers. Dozens had gathered at a beach in the Thiruvanmayr district of Madras after hearing the news on TV.
In the neighbouring state of Andrha Pradesh, officials said they had begun evacuating people from 11 coastal villages in Prakasam district.
Satish Shetye of the National Institute of Oceanography told NDTV initial reports suggested the earthquake was much deeper underwater than the December quake, and so a tsunami was less likely. A weather official also played down the risk.
"A tsunami cannot be ruled out but the chances of a tsunami are less," an India Meteorological Department official said.
Officials in the Andaman and Nicobar islands said they had seen no change in the water level in and around Port Blair, capital of the remote archipelago. The government there said it had issued a preliminary tsunami warning but was not yet evacuating people.
"We have alerted all the police stations to alert the public in coastal areas," Lieutenant-Governor Ram Kapse told Reuters from Port Blair.
Kapse said he had not issued any formal orders to evacuate people from the coast.
"There is no report of any damage," he said. "We have issued an initial warning. If there is any problem, we will evacuate."
More than 7,000 people are thought to have died when the December tsumani struck the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which lie 1,200 km (800 miles) off India's mainland, close to Indonesia and Myanmar.
"We did not feel the earthquake here," Samir Kohli, deputy director of shipping in the islands, told Reuters. "Our reports are that it will not generate a tsunami in this area, but we are anyway being alert and not taking any chances."
