Earthquake Summary
Earthquake Summary Poster
Felt Reports
Reports of slight damage and a power outage on Simeulue island. Felt (V) at Banda Aceh. Widely felt in Indonesia. Also felt in Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand.
Tectonic Summary
The northern Sumatra earthquake of May 9, 2010 occurred as a result of thrust faulting on or near the subduction interface plate boundary between the Australia-India and Sunda plates. At the location of this earthquake, the Australia and India Plates move north-northeast with respect to the Sunda plate at a velocity of approximately 60-65 mm/yr. On the basis of the currently available fault mechanism information and earthquake depth, it is likely that this earthquake occurred along the plate interface.
The subduction zone surrounding the immediate region of this event slipped during the devastating Mw 9.1 earthquake of December 2004, and today's event appears to have occurred within the rupture zone of that earthquake. Today's earthquake is the latest in a sequence of large ruptures along the Sunda megathrust, including a M 7.8 in April of this year, approximately 200 km to the south of today's event; two M 7.4 earthquakes beneath Simeulue approximately 100 km to the south in 2002 and 2008; a M 8.6 210 km to the south in 2005; a M 7.5 650 km to the south near Padang in 2009; and two events of M8.5 and M7.9 approximately 1000 km to the south in 2007.
Earthquake Information for Asia
Earthquake Information for Indonesia
A large earthquake, measured by the US Geological Survey as having a magnitude of 7.2, struck near , Indonesia earlier today.

The epicentre was 215  (130 ) south-southeast of , Sumatra, and
630 kilometres (390 miles) west of Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, at a depth of 45 kilometres (28 miles), the USGS reports. The tremors started at about 13.00 local time (05.59 UTC). A local tsunami alert was made by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, but rescinded about an hour and a half later.

"Sea level readings indicate that a significant tsunami was not generated. Therefore, the tsunami watch issued by this center is now cancelled," the PTWC said in a statement on its website.

The Associated Press news agency quotes local media as saying some power lines were knocked down and some buildings damaged.

The epicentre of the temblor is near that of 2004's magnitude 9.2 earthquake, which generated a large tsunami and killed around 170,000 people. Indonesia is on a very tectonically active part of the world, the , and experiences earthquakes frequently.