Quake Rattles Nias Island

When I was in my teens and early twenties I was a crazy surf nut. There was always two things we could count on for big swells and they were massive storms and some underwater activity in the Indian Ocean.

No doubt surfers on the island of Nias, a surfing mecca in Indonesia, will be keeping their eyes on the tidal charts after a moderate earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale rattled the island on Tueday. Fortunately there were no reports of casualties.

The quake occurred at 07.58 am and was centered 86 kilometers (53 miles) north of the main town Gunung Sitoli, the meteorology and geophysics agency said in Jakarta. The under-sea quake had a depth of 96 kilometers. The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 5.3.

Nias was one of the areas hit by the massive 2004 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean including 168,000 people in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Three months later Nias was struck by an 8.7 magnitude quake which killed 850 people, injured 6,000 and left tens of thousands homeless.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where the meeting of continental plates causes frequent seismic activity.