Earthquake hits off tsunami-lashed Indian Ocean archipelago

INDIA: A moderate 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck Wednesday off the Andaman and Nicobar islands, meteorologists said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The quake struck on Wednesday evening with its epicentre 188 kilometres (117 miles) west-northwest of Misha in the Nicobars at a depth of 30 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.

The Andaman and Nicobar chain of more than 500 islands in the Indian Ocean was hit hard by the December 2004 tsunami which killed more than 16,000 people in India.

The 5.1 reading was based on the open-ended Moment Magnitude scale, now used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

New Delhi, Thursday, AFP