Chili earthquake

Chile earthquake magnitude 8.8 Richter scale caused a tsunami in various places in the Pacific region could cause a tsunami in the north of Papua, Indonesia, but the height is very small, about 5 cm.

"Even though Chile is very far distance, almost half of our globe, but the resulting tsunami could have an impact. As we continue to observe the movement of these tsunami waves from time to time to reach Indonesia," said Head Buoy Program Ina-TEWS (Tsunami Early Warning System) BPPT Rev. Dr. W. correspondents in Jakarta, Monday (1/3/2010).

On February 27, at 03.34 local time (13:34 AM GMT), an earthquake shook Chile in the south latitude 35.826 and 72.669 west longitude, or 317 km west of the capital of Chile, Santiago.

On the coast of Chile, South America, he said, waves of the quake generated a tsunami that reached 3-4 meters, thus making the countries in coastal regions and islands in the Pacific time to panic.

Tens of thousands of people in Hawaii had been evacuated, but when the tsunami reached the Hawaiian rambatannya speed of 800 km per hour, was reduced to only 1.5 meters tall.

TEWS stations are installed in the sea areas in the country some time after that, he continued, monitor lead to propagation of tsunami in northern Japan and did not lead to Indonesia, or areas in the southern hemisphere of the earth.

"Finally, Japan had 1.2-meter-high tsunami. This illustrates that, although far we still must be vigilant because there was no decrease in the tsunami wave amplitude, so its energy is almost not reduced when the vines. It depends on the direction of movement," he said.

The tsunami reached the north of Papua almost equal to Japan, which is 21 hours after the quake, but with an amplitude of only 5 cm, he explained.

Director of Technology Center of Land Resources, and Disaster Mitigation BPPT said Ridwan Djamaluddin, Chile tsunami is the first international experience in which the TEWS system has been installed and the monitoring well.

"In the tsunami in Aceh, the TEWS system has not completely installed. This is a lesson to the world that the TEWS important," he said.