SAFETY FIRST: Patients seeking treatment at Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan in Kuantan being brought out to the car parking area after the tremors. — Bernama photo
KUALA LUMPUR: Several states in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia experienced tremors following a magnitude 8.7 earthquake which hit Indonesia’s Aceh region today.
The Malaysian Meteorological Department warned the public to stay away from the coast in Kedah, Perlis, Langkawi, Penang and Perak as there was a possible tsunami risk.
Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department assistant operations director Azizan Ismail when contacted by Bernama confirmed the matter and said the tremors were felt in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Perak.
The tremors were felt around 4.50pm.
In Penang, mild tremors lasting about a minute were felt in Seberang Prai , sending people scurrying out of their homes and public places.
Tremors were also felt in the Klang Valley.
Azizan said fire and rescue personnel were despatched to areas where the members of the public sent distress calls.
He said the department received calls at around 4.47 about tremors felt in places like Ampang and Jalan Tun Razak.
Staff at the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama’s) heaquarters located off Jalan Tun Razak also reported feeling tremors which lasted about 10 minutes.
In KANGAR, residents at the Seri Sena flats in Kampung Bakau rushed out of their homes and gathered in the parking lot after experiencing the tremors.
The residents said they became afraid when the 12-storey flats shook during the tremors.
The tremors were also reported to have been felt at the EPF building in the city and also at Kampung Behor Lateh near here as well as Kuala Perlis.
Earlier, it was reported that Indonesia had issued a tsunami warning after a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.9 hit waters off westernmost Aceh province.
The US Geological Survey said the quake was centred 33km beneath the ocean floor around 495km from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.
Said, an official at Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency who goes by only one name, said a tsunami warning has been issued.
Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.
A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on Dec 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh.
Meanwhile in Bangkok, a tsunami warning and evacuation order was issued by disaster prevention authorities in the southern Thai provinces of Phuket and Phangnga.
“The province has turned on the warning sirens and asked people all over Phuket island to move to a safe place,” an official from the Phuket Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Centre told Reuters by telephone.
An official from the warning centre Phangnga said: “We warn people in every district to evacuate immediately because there is a possibility of a tsunami.”
People on Twitter said tremors were felt in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and India. High-rise apartments and offices on Malaysia’s west coast shook for at least a minute.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami watch was in effect for Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore. – Agencies