USGS: huge earthquake hits in Indian Ocean

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. officials on Monday reported that a huge 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck in the Indian Ocean and issued a regional tsunami watch for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was about 160 miles (257 kilometers) north of Port Blair in India's Andaman Islands and about 20.6 miles (33 kilometers) deep.

"The danger for a tsunami is real," William Leith, an earthquake manager at the USGS, said in an interview.

By comparison, however, Leith said that Monday's Indian Ocean quake, though very large, was "many times smaller" than a massive earthquake in December 2004 off Indonesia's western island of Sumatra that triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people.

Also Monday, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 shook Tokyo and surrounding areas.

Quakes that occur that far apart are typically not related, Leith said, but it was too early to say for sure; he said scientists would be studying the two quakes.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which is part of the U.S. National Weather Service, said the Indian Ocean quake could generate destructive tsunamis in the region, though it cautioned that it was not known if such a tsunami had occurred.

The center issued a bulletin that it said was only meant as advice to government agencies, which must make their own decisions about what action to take.

It warned, however, that earthquakes of the size of the Indian Ocean quake have the potential to generate destructive tsunamis along coasts usually no more than a thousand kilometers from the earthquake epicenter.

The earthquake was reported to have struck about 225 miles (365 kilometers) south-southwest of Myanmar, 510 miles (825 kilometers) west of Bangkok, and 1,420 miles (2,295 kilometers) southeast of New Delhi.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)