More than 350 people were killed on the remote Mentawai Islands off Sumatra after a 10-foot tsunami was triggered by a powerful undersea tremor. Many more are feared to have been washed out to sea because Monday's tsunami struck without warning. Observers say that early warning and monitoring equipment installed since the devastating December 2004 Indian Ocean quake and subsequent tsunami did not work due to lack of maintenance. This raises the question of what might happen if a much larger Tsunami wave had struck: what questions then of the much famed and expensive technology that has been installed with money given by donors from around the world following the Dec 2004 disaster.
Monday's 7.7 magnitude temblor struck at 9:42 p.m. local time about 150 miles west of the Sumatran provincial capital of Bengkulu at a depth of less than 13 miles.
