Indonesia Hit by Another Earthquake

Residents and rescuers inspect a building destroyed by earthquake in Padang, Sumatra island, Indonesia, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007. The massive 8.2-magnitude earthquake killed at least ten people, injured 100 and triggered a small tsunami in western Indonesia on Wednesday, authorities said. Warnings for destructive waves were issued across much of the Indian Ocean region. (AP Photo/Abdilla) (Abdilla - AP)

PADANG, Indonesia -- The ground shook so hard Yulinar had to grab a table to steady herself. Minutes later, she heard a warning crackling over the speakers of the neighborhood mosque _ a tsunami could crash into her fishing village on Indonesia's Sumatra island at any minute.

But despite the intensity of the shallow undersea earthquake, no waves lashed the beach and the family shack was undamaged. A quirk of nature sent the full force of the tsunami out to sea, preventing a repeat of the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster that killed more than 230,000 people _ most of them on Sumatra.

"We heard the mayor's voice and then ran up a hill," said Yulinar, a mother of five, of the 8.4-magnitude quake that shook Indonesia on Wednesday. "It was very bad. I was so scared a tsunami was coming."

A series of powerful earthquakes and aftershocks followed over a 24-hour period Wednesday and Thursday, damaging hundreds of homes, mosques and schools, and unleashing a 10-foot-high tsunami. At least 13 people were killed and 50 others injured.

On Friday, a 6.6-magnitude temblor hit the area again, triggering the latest tsunami warning, the local meteorological agency said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said, however, that the quake was probably not powerful enough to create a deadly tsunami.

"This earthquake isn't big enough," said Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist with the USGS. "Generally it needs to be over 7.2 (magnitude)."

Officials at Indonesia's Meteorological and Geophysics Agency said a tsunami alert had been issued.

Following Wednesday's quake, many feared a tsunami heading for land. But the huge mass of water spawned by the initial 8.4-magnitude quake was pushed to sea instead, said Mike Turnbull, a seismologist at Australia's Central Queensland University.

"It could have quite easily have been the other way," he said, noting that pressure between the shifting Australian-Indian and Asian plates has been building up over hundreds of thousands of years and was ready to explode. "It's a quirk of nature that this is how it happened."

Although the 10-foot-high tsunami slammed into at least one fishing village on Sumatra on Wednesday, damage overall was "minimal," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after the Air Force conducted an aerial survey.

A nine-member U.N. assessment team reached the same conclusion after visiting the area, saying that a major international relief operation was not required, John Holmes, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement from New York.