An 8.5 earthquake has occurred near Northern Sumatera Indonesia.
A tsunami bulletin has been issued.

The quake occurred in the same region as December 26th. That 9 on the Richter scale devastated parts of 11 countries in Southeast Asia, killed 174 thousand people and left 106 thousand missing. 15. million people were left homeless.

Today’s quake originated 200 kilometers A preminary report from geographical monitoring in Japan and the US says this quake was about 19 miles under the sea bed 200 kilometers from Indonesia.

Hard tremors were felt in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

US geological reports say the quake was an 8.2, Japan’s monitoring service says 8.5. Today’s quake is in the aftershock zone of of the December event.
On March 20th the Kyushu area of Japan suffered a major quake. Buildings on the island of Genkai were heavily damaged and the 700 residents have not been able to return.

The South-East Asia Earthquate and Tsunami blog set up after the December 26th destruction has updates on today’s quake.
Jeff Ooi of Screenshots in Malaysia also has updated information.

Update: The power of blogs. Peter Tan of The Digital Awakening was probably the first person online blogging about the quake. Peter is in a wheel chair. His first entry at 12:11 am says:

My apartment is shaking now.

Update:Reuters is reporting dozens of deaths on Nias Island.

Update: The US Geological Survey has upgraded it’s estimate of today’s quake from 8.2 to 8.7.

An article in the British Journal Nature published March 17th predicted stress on the Sunda trench would trigger another massive quake.

Update: Indonesian Vice-President Yusuf Kalla says the death toll on Nais Island from todays quake is between 1 to 2 thousand.
Hundreds of buildings collapsed. Extensive damage is reported on Simeulue.
In December 340 died, 10 thousand were left homeless on this one Indonesian Island.
In addition, a huge fire was raging in Gunungsitoli as survivors dealt with aftershocks every half hour, witnesses told international media agencies.