Recent Indonesia Quake Added Pressure to Key Fault

Seismologists say last week’s powerful earthquake off western Indonesia increased pressure on the source of the devastating 2004 tsunami: a fault that could unleash another monster wave sometime in the next few decades.

The director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore said “the spring was pushed a little bit tighter” by the 8.6-magnitude quake off the coast of tsunami-ravage Aceh province. He says it may have advanced the timing of the next feared disaster by a few years.

The quake also showed that despite extensive emergency management efforts, Aceh remains unprepared for the next Big One. It caused little damage but even Indonesia’s disaster-management chief says evacuation efforts were “a big mess.”

Associated Press writer Fakrurradzie Gade contributed to this report from Banda Aceh, Indonesia