Indian Ocean quake triggers tsunami alert

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck under the Indian Ocean yesterday, triggering a tsunami watch for nearby islands and causing tremors reportedly felt along India's eastern seaboard.

The quake hit at 1.26am local time (1926 GMT) at a depth of 35 km with the epicentre 160 km west of India's Nicobar Islands.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, based in Hawaii, initially issued a warning for the entire Indian Ocean region. This was downgraded to a warning for India only, when the magnitude of the quake was revised to 7.5 from 7.7, and later the centre cancelled the alert altogether.

India's ocean information centre issued a "tsunami watch" for 10-15 islands, but said it was expecting only a mild surge in sea levels of about 50 cm.

"This is nothing alarming, but just a watch," Sriniwas Kumar, a spokesman for the state-run Indian National Centre for Oc?ean Information Services, said by telephone from the agency's headquarters in Hyderabad.

Sri Lanka issued a tsunami alert for its coastal areas following the quake in Nicobar Island. "We had issued the tsunami alert to all the coastal areas and are on watch for evacuation," Pradeep Koddipily, an official at the national disaster management centre, said.

Meanwhile, a strong earthquake measured to be 6.2 on the richter scale shook northern Japan early yesterday, said Japan Metrological Agency. But the agency did not issue a tsunami alert.

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