A big one is coming in Padang?

There is an article in NST yesterday elaborating at length on high possibility of gigantic earthquake or tsunami occurring in Padang following an 8.6 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Northern Sumatra occurring on 11 April. Seismologists predicted that an earthquake could strike anytime in Padang due to the building up of stress in the areas concerned and warned that there will be very strong shaking and big waves may come 30 minutes later. It will be very devastating should that happen as Padang is so close to sea.

Padang is a town at Western Sumatra that I used to visit since 1999 for 2 or 3 times a year until the client terminated our service. The 3-storey office building of one of our client is just located a walking distance from the seaside and the previous earthquake occurring in 2009 had partially damaged the office building but it is still safe for occupying after some repairing. 

Come to think of it, the town is so densely populated and if gigantic earthquake really happens as what predicted by the experts than the damage will be far beyond our imagination. It could be as serious as the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami which killed 70,000 people in Bandar Aceh and a total of 230,000 people in 14 affected countries with Indonesia, the hardest hit country followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. 

Padang is just an hour flight from KL and should a gigantic earthquake occurs there I guess our country particularly West Coast of Peninsula Malaysia will be somehow affected. We always say that this country is safe from earthquake as it is located out of the ring of fire but even with the most sophisticated equipments, we can’t simply see what is going to come in the future.