7.6 Earthquake strikes Indian Ocean

[djones520]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ajriIG8eRHEg

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Two potentially destructive earthquakes struck minutes apart in the Indian Ocean and Japan today, generating tsunami alerts for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Japan.

The larger of the two quakes was a magnitude-7.6 temblor that hit the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, and it was followed less than 15 minutes later by a 6.6-magnitude quake in Japan southwest of Tokyo.

The Andaman quake struck at a depth of 33 kilometers (21 miles) at about 1:55 a.m. local time and was centered 260 kilometers north of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, or about 825 kilometers west of Bangkok, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

A tsunami warning was in effect for as long as three hours after the quake struck for parts of India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center retracted an earlier statement that a potentially destructive tsunami had been generated near the quake epicenter.

A magnitude-9.1 earthquake that hit off the coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra in December 2004 triggered a tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean, leaving more than 229,000 dead or missing from Southeast Asia to eastern Africa.

Seems that all as well.  Bet a lot of people freaked out about this though.