6.6 magnitude earthquake hits Indonesia

 The quake struck at 12:55 am (1755 GMT on Monday) at a depth of 110 kilometres (70 miles), USGS said, with its epicentre around 400 kilometres (250 miles) southeast of Banda Aceh.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake was too far inland to generate a tsunami.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where the collision of continental plates causes high seismic activity, and Sumatra is particularly prone to earthquakes.

Aceh was devastated when a 9.1-magnitude quake off Sumatra in December 2004 triggered a huge tsunami which killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

US Geological Survey initially gave a magnitude of 6.5 for Tuesday s quake.

Huge tsunami kills hundreds in Japan, sweeps across Pacific

TOKYO: The biggest earthquake on record to hit Japan rocked the northeast coast on Friday, triggering a 10-metre tsunami that killed hundreds of people and swept away everything in its path, including houses, ships and cars.

The Red Cross in Geneva said the wall of water was higher than some Pacific islands and a tsunami warning was issued for almost the entire Pacific basin, although alerts were lifted for some countries, including Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.

Up to 300 bodies were found in the coastal city of Sendai, media said. NHK television said the victims appeared to have drowned. The extent of the destruction along a lengthy stretch of coastline suggested the death toll could rise significantly.

Some 3,000 residents living near a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture, north of Tokyo, were told to evacuate but the government said no radiation was leaking. It said the evacuation was a precaution after a reactor cooling malfunction.

Other nuclear power plants and oil refineries were shut down after the 8.9 magnitude quake, while one refinery was ablaze. A major explosion hit a petrochemical complex in Miyagi prefecture after the quake, Kyodo said.

Political leaders pushed for an emergency budget to help fund relief efforts after Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked them to “save the country”, Kyodo news agency reported.

Stunning TV footage showed a muddy wall of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, home to one million people and which lies 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbour wharf, where they lay helplessly on their side.

The quake, the most powerful since Japan started keeping records 140 years ago, sparked at least 80 fires in cities and towns along the coast, Kyodo news agency said.

A ship carrying 100 people had been swept away by the tsunami, Kyodo said. One train was unaccounted for.

In Tokyo, residents who had earlier fled swaying buildings jammed the streets trying to make their way home after much of the city’s public transportation was shut down.

Electronics giant Sony Corp , one of the country’s biggest exporters, shut six factories, as air force jets raced toward the northeast coast to determine the extent of the damage.

The Bank of Japan, which has been struggling to boost the anaemic economy, said it would do its utmost to ensure financial market stability as the yen and Japanese shares fell.

“I was terrified and I”m still frightened,” said Hidekatsu Hata, 36, manager of a Chinese noodle restaurant in Tokyo, where buildings shook violently. “I’ve never experienced such a big quake before.”

The tsunami alerts revived memories of the giant waves which struck Asia in 2004. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued alerts for countries to the west and across the Pacific as far away as Colombia and Peru.

The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century.

There were several strong aftershocks. In Tokyo, there was widespread panic. An oil refinery near the city was on fire, with dozens of storage tanks under threat.

Around 4.4 million homes were without power in northern Japan, media said.

“People are flooding the streets. It’s incredible. Everyone is trying to get home but I didn’t see any taxis,” said Koji Goto, a 43-year-old Tokyo resident.

NHK television showed flames and black smoke billowing from a building in Odaiba, a Tokyo suburb, and bullet trains to the north of the country were halted. Thick smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama’s Isogo area. TV showed residents of the city running out of shaking buildings, shielding their heads with their hands from falling masonry.

TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks tossed around like toys in the water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. An overpass, location unknown, appeared to have collapsed and cars were turning around and speeding away.

“The building shook for what seemed a long time and many people in the newsroom grabbed their helmets and some got under their desks,” Reuters correspondent Linda Sieg said in Tokyo. “It was probably the worst I have felt since I came to Japan more than 20 years ago.”

The U.S. navy said its ships had been unaffected by the tsunami and were ready to provide disaster relief if needed.

China offered to provide earthquake relief.

The quake struck just before the Tokyo stock market closed, pushing the Nikkei down to end at a five-week low. Nikkei futures trading in Osaka tumbled as much as 4.7 percent in reaction to the news.

The disaster also weighed on markets elsewhere.

GREAT KANTO QUAKE

The quake surpasses the Great Kanto quake of Sept. 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.

The 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. Economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was estimated at about $10 billion.

Passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers” hands during the quake. The shaking was so bad it was hard to stand, said Reuters reporter Mariko Katsumura.

Hundreds of office workers and shoppers spilled into Hitotsugi street, a shopping street in Akasaka in downtown Tokyo.

Crowds gathered in front of televisions in a shop next to the drugstore for details. After the shaking from the first quake subsided, crowds watched and pointed to construction cranes on an office building up the street with voices saying, “They”re still shaking!”, “Are they going to fall?”

Japan”s northeast Pacific coast, called Sanriku, has suffered from quakes and tsunamis in the past and a 7.2 quake struck on Wednesday. In 1933, a magnitude 8.1 quake in the area killed more than 3,000 people.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world”s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

At least 49 killed in Bangladesh landslides

COX”S BAZAR: Powerful landslides triggered by heavy rains killed at least 49 people in southeastern Bangladesh on Tuesday, striking a coastal area as people slept and burying many alive inside their homes.

Rescuers pulled bodies from under chunks of mud covering mostly thatched huts before rescue work was suspended because of darkness, officials said.

As the rain continued to pound, officials feared the toll could rise. At least five soldiers were confirmed dead and another was missing after their camp was hit by a mudslide.

The mudslides struck early Tuesday in two areas in Cox”s Bazar, 185 miles (296 kilometers) south of the capital, Dhaka, in a hilly and forested region near the border with Myanmar.

Kabir Ahmed, a 45-year-old villager, said he felt something shake his mud-walled and tin-roof house before a stream of mud and trees came down on top of it.

“It was raining when I woke up to say my morning prayers,” Ahmed said. “Then there was the jolt followed by rolling mud.”

Ahmed survived when he went out in darkness to see what was happening. Before he could return, his house was covered with tons of mud burying his wife and three young children alive.

Rains hampered rescue efforts with many roads inundated.

Fire fighters and soldiers were using cranes and water hoses to clear debris from a makeshift military camp in the Ramu area that was buried under mud, said local photographer Rashedul Majid. Several vehicles were covered by layers of mud and a huge banyan tree had collapsed on a bamboo-and-tin roof shelter, he said.

A district magistrate in Cox”s Bazar, Mohammad Jasim Uddin, confirmed the deaths of five soldiers and said another was trapped.

Sudan”s Beshir forms new government

KHARTOUM: Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Monday formed a 35-member government two months after multi-party elections, according to an official decree distributed to the media.

Beshir handed the key foreign ministry to Ali Karti from his ruling National Congress Party while the strategic oil ministry went to Luwal Ashweil Deng, from the ex-rebel South Sudan People”s Liberation Movement.

The SPLM held the foreign ministry in the previous government, which Beshir dissolved at the end of May following his re-election victory in April during which his party retained a majority of seats in parliament.

“President Omar Hassan al-Beshir has announced in a statement the nomination of ministers and ministers of state,” said the decree, a copy of which was received by media.

According to the text of the decree, the new government will have 35 cabinet ministers, compared to 31 in the previous line-up, as well as 42 ministers of state.

Karti, known to be a conservative Islamist, was a minister of state for foreign affairs in a previous administration and has also served in the past as minister of state for judicial affairs.

Deng, a member of the ex-rebel SPLM, served as a minister of state for financial affairs in the previous government.

Twenty-four ministers were chosen from Beshir”s National Congress Party while eight of the ministries went to SPLM members. Three small parties received each a government ministry.

The ex-rebel SPLM joined the government after signing with the Khartoum government in 2005 a peace deal that ended a devastating civil war that lasted more than two decades.

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended two decades of war in Sudan by offering southern Sudan a measure of autonomy until the future of the country is determined in a referendum set for January 2011.

Sudan produces 500,000 barrels of oil per day and has reserves estimated at six billion barrels.

Most of it lies on the border between north and south and how to share the revenues has been a major source of tension in the run-up to the promised referendum on southern independence due in January.

Earlier this month Beshir warned of an “explosive” situation between north and south Sudan if the south chooses to break away in the referendum, but he also said: “We have no other choice but to work with the SPLM for the sake of the country”s unity.”

Beshir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur, was sworn in last month.

At his swearing in ceremony the Sudanese president said he was committed to holding the referendum on time.

“It is a commitment we will not renege on. We made a vow and we will adhere to it,” he said.

“We will accept, in good faith, the choice of the south, whatever the choice may be,” he said, but stressed he would work for unity.

Over the past few months several deadly clashes took place along the border between north and south Sudan.

7.7-magnitude quake rattles Eastern Indonesia

JAKARTA: A major 7.7-magnitude earthquake has hit off Eastern Indonesian cost, triggering the officials to issue Tsunami warning for coastal areas, Geo news reported.

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