NU Online News Service, April 11, 12:37 p.m.EDT
|An earthquake registering magnitude 8.6 struck off theNorthern coast of Sumatra, stirring tsunami fears, but the incidentappears to have produced little significant damage.
|At around 2:38 p.m. local time, an earthquake rattled Indonesia,followed by a magnitude 8.2 after shock that sent tsunami warningsthroughout the Indian Ocean region.
|Scientists say the quakes were not conducive to causing tsunami.Hours later officials began to drop the warnings.
|However, reports say panic drove many to higher ground as manyresidents still remembered the Sept. 30, 2009 magnitude 7.5earthquake that caused a tsunami and would eventually take morethan 1,000 lives.
|Risk Management Services says that there were few initialreports of damage.
|Catastrophe modeler AIR Worldwide issued a statement late in theday saying that buildings in the affected region “have an irregularfloor shape.” This shape, along with poor construction practicesand little code enforcement increase the susceptibility of officebuildings and other commercial constrction.
|That said, AIR says that due to the location of the quake thereis not expected to be “significant insured losses from thisevent.”
|The earthquake was located 269 miles southwest of Banda Aceh,Sumatra, Indonesia and 598 miles west of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysiawith a depth of 20.5 miles (33 km).
|This story was updated at 4:24 p.m. with comments from AIRWorldwide.
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