Maungdaw, Arakan State: An earthquake occurred in Northern Arakan’s Maungdaw and Buthidaung at 2:55:42 hours on Tuesday, lasting for a few seconds in two phases, a local elder in Maungdaw said.
“When we realized that the houses were shaking, everybody ran out from their homes and sat on the ground. After the tremors stopped we stood up to go inside but, suddenly the ground started shaking again. It continued for a few seconds,” he said.
“There were no reports of damages or casualties, but most of our goods were thrown around inside the houses, like dishes and plates,” he added.
The Government of Burma did not do anything about the earthquake, like issuing an alert or taking precautions against the earthquake, said a school teacher from Maungdaw.
The tide water rose higher in the river when the earthquake was felt, said a fisherman from Maungdaw.
The earthquake was felt in the region of Bangladesh, India and Burma, after the major tremor of a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter Scale, struck the Andaman Islands, according to a report from the Met office of Bangladesh.
Awakened from their sleep by the tremors, many people panicked and ran out of their high-rise buildings.
The epicenter of the quake was 980 kilometres south-southeast of the Bangladesh Seismic Centre at Agargaon in the city, the Met Office said. At around 4:00am, the Met Office issued a tsunami alert for India, Burma, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh, but the alert about the underwater quake, which creates tidal upsurge was withdrawn at about 6:40am as it proved to be a false alarm.
However, the Burmese Met office released a report that a moderate earthquake of intensity 5.4 on the Richter Scale with its epicenter inside Burma (Burma-India Border Region), about 530 miles northwest of Kaba-Aye Seismological Observatory was recorded at 04hrs 13min 48sec M.S.T on August 12, 2009.
"According to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and Japan Meteorological Agency, a devastating tsunami is unlikely to affect the coast of Bangladesh, as the expected time of 06:40 am (BST) on Tuesday is over," said a Met Office bulletin to allay worries.
It said: "There is no signal for the maritime ports of Bangladesh."
Receiving the alert, the government put some 42,000 volunteers on alert as a part of the preparatory measures lest there should be a tsunami in the coastal districts, according to Food and Disaster Management Minister Dr. M Abdur Razzaque.
Panic spread among the residents of the Cox’s Bazaar district town (which is the border of Burma) after the tremors were felt in the Andaman Islands.
According to BBC News of Russell Trott reports, earlier, a tremor measuring 7.6 was recorded, north of India's Andaman Islands between Burma and India. A tsunami warning was issued, but later withdrawn. But, the powerful earthquake hit Tokyo and nearby areas shortly after dawn on Tuesday, halting trains and forcing two nuclear reactors to shut down for safety checks. More than 30 people suffered minor injuries.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch for the region.
"Earthquakes of this magnitude have the potential to generate a destructive local tsunami and sometimes a destructive regional tsunami along coasts located usually no more than a thousand kilometers (about 600 miles), from the earthquake epicenter," the tsunami center said in its bulletin.
However, an official at the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services said a tsunami warning had not been issued by his department.
In Indonesia, a meteorology agency official said his agency was monitoring the Aceh area on the tip of Sumatra. So far there have been no reports of a tsunami in Indonesia, but it could take two hours for one to reach the coastline.
