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YOGYAKARTA - A team of international earthquake specialists says that Indonesia is currently facing another potential 'giant' earthquake in the near future. The scientists, among them a team from the California Institute of Technology, says that the three major earthquakes that struck off western Sumatra last week, have actually increased the chances of a renewed major disaster.
A CNN reporter traveled to the latest earthquake zone in Indonesia with a scientist who put himself in the area of the world's powerful earthquakes, deliberately. Directly on the equator, the island of Sumatra holds the deadliest stretch of ocean in the world. "You'd see a strip 30 meters high, stripped down to bedrock," tells John Galetzka, a former United States Army ranger, who is now working on a different frontline as an earthquake geologist. He is investigating the fault line that sparked the massive 2004 tsunami and the recent powerful earthquakes.
More than 140 earthquakes have occurred since the major earthquake with a magnitude 8.4 on the Richter Scale struck off western Sumatra. This was the second swarm with a huge earthquake in less than three years in the area.
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Just last Friday, Galetzka shot video footage of a shaking beach which startled locals, trying to find higher ground. He was directly reminded at the danger of a tsunami and his command ship offshore. Just a few moments later he recorded the panic near the beaches, as families were evacuating to the hills behind their villages. Just one day before another big quake struck, but that one was further away. Galetzka recalls the long and slow waves and a shaking bottle of water. This is where theory meets reality.
"I just felt like the luckiest man alive to feel two strong events," he says. "You can almost hear the excitement in my voice - oh my gosh, this is it, this is it ..." Galetzka is currently examining the evidence that - according to his team - indicates the arrival of another giant earthquake - and a possible tsunami.
He has established a network of markers, linked to a satellite, that show a constant but slow creep towards the northeast, among the islands in the area of the Indian Ocean near Indonesia. The first marker was placed in August 2002. The 30 stations along the western coast of Sumatra tell a clear tale. Driven by plate tectonics beneath the Indian Ocean, the entire coastline is flexing. The earth literally bends. The pressure already is gigantic and at some point - probably soon - it will become intolerable. The implications are terrifying.
"Eventually it has got to release in the form of giant earthquake," tells Galetzka as if it is almost a fact already. It could be a rare earthquake with a magnitude of nine on the Richter Scale and with plates so tightly sprung, it will likely happen sooner than later he believes. If you know what he knows, does he worry about the people living in the area? "I absolutely do," he replies. "I tell them to be prepared. Whenever I am in Padang I think about my escape routes, almost every moment."
When he travels across the islands, looking for data, Galetzka tells that it is his aim to save lives. But he, more than anyone, knows the risks - that one day he will have to confront a giant wave, a tsunami powerful enough to destroy entire islands. As he imagines 'the big one' his voice quivers. "If we saw it, we'd just head right into it. I'd shake your hand and say, good luck!"
See also
· Event: 'Earthquakes in Indonesia'
· Earthquake monitor
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indahnesia.com lists all earthquakes that occur in Indonesia. For your convenience we display them in a list and a Google Map. It is as accurate and recent as you can imagine as we check for updates every few minutes. If an earthquake occurs in Indonesia, this is the place to check it out in the first place.
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I already warned before. I predict Padang will be below sea level within the next couple of years. No prayers to Allah will help...Just dont buy a house there and stay away!!
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It happened already a few thousands years ago; that is what they suprisingly discovered of lake Toba ......
Yellowstone's Super Sister.
Lake Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia LAKE TOBA , SUMATRA , INDONESIA.
By Larry O'Hanlon .
The 1,080-square-mile Toba caldera is the only supervolcano in existence that can be described as Yellowstone's "big" sister.
About 74,000 years ago, Toba erupted and ejected almost three times as much volcanic ash as the most recent major Yellowstone eruption (Lava Creek, 630,000 years ago) and about 12 percent more than Yellowstone's largest eruption (Huckleberry Ridge, 1.8 million years ago). That comes to several thousand times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980.
Some researchers suspect that Toba's super eruption and the global cold spell it triggered might explain a mystery in the human genome. Our genes suggest we all come from a few thousand people just tens of thousands of years ago, instead of from a much older, bigger lineage — as the fossil evidence testifies. Both could be true if only a few small groups of humans survived the cold years following the Toba eruption.
Source: dsc.discovery.com/convergence/(...)thers/others_02.html
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