A “Great” Quake
Tuesday, March 29th, 2005 at 9:48 am in Current EventsThe quake was centered on the same fault line where the December 26 earthquake launched a tsunami that left more than 300,000 people dead or still listed as missing.
The December 26 quake was a magnitude 9.0 — the strongest in 40 years. It triggered a massive tsunami that devastated coastlines in nearly a dozen nations in Africa and Asia.
“This looks like a fraternal twin of the December 26 earthquake,” said Kerry Sieh, a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology.
“It’s not a duplicate. It occurred a little bit further south,” Sieh said. “But it’s the same type of earthquake.”
Only 12 great earthquakes have occurred since 1906, he said.
The quake is considered a “great” earthquake, the largest of seven grades. The grades are very minor, minor, light, moderate, strong, major and great.
The absence of an early warning system in the Indian Ocean has been decried as contributing to many deaths in December’s disaster.
“This time, at least, people heard about the earthquake,” Egeland said. “Many people fled inland.”
