Eurasia Review
28 March 2016
- RSIS
- Media Mentions
- The West Sumatra Earthquakes: Not Learning Our Lessons? – Analysis
The West Sumatra Earthquakes: Not Learning Our Lessons? – Analysis
A big earthquake hit the ocean floor off Southwestern Sumatra, Indonesia on 2 March 2016. Tsunami warnings were issued by the government to the whole Sumatran regions. How effective are Indonesia’s tsunami warning systems today?
Tsunami warnings issued by the Indonesian authority soon after the 7.8 scale earthquakes that struck off West Sumatra on 2 March 2016 were cancelled a few hours after the activation of the warnings all over Sumatra by the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).
Though the earthquakes were powerful enough to be felt in some parts of Singapore, they were determined to be less tsunamigenic than thought as they occurred at about 650 km off the Sumatran fault line. Still there were noticeable gaps in the Indonesian Tsunamis Warning Systems.
… Jonatan A. Lassa is a Research Fellow at Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
NTS Centre / Online
Last updated on 30/03/2016
