Padang: a major Indonesian city threatened by disaster

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2007

JAKARTA (AFP) — International scientists are concerned about the growing threat of an earthquake or a tsunami in the Indonesian city of Padang, which has 800,000 inhabitants.

This port on the west coast of Sumatra, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) from Singapore and twice that from Jakarta, is located between two lines of high seismic activity: the Great Sumatran fault, on the mainland to the east, and the Sumatra trench, a subduction zone under the ocean, to the west.

It is the subduction zone that is of greatest concern: friction undersea between the descending Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian tectonic plate, which move together at a rate of five to six centimetres (two to three inches) per year, is eventually likely to cause death and destruction in Padang,...