India withdraws tsunami warning

India withdrew the tsunami warning late on Wednesday evening, hours after it sounded an alert along its coastal belt including Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the aftermath of earthquake in Indonesia.

India withdrew the tsunami warning late on Wednesday evening, hours after it sounded an alert along its coastal belt including Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the aftermath of earthquake in Indonesia.

HT Image

"The Indonesian tsunami warning centre has withdrawn the warning and there is no point in our keeping it. The possibility of tsunami hitting the Indian coast was over by 8.30 pm," said AK Shukla, a seismologist at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) in New Delhi.

"As of now, we have withdrawn the warning from India," Shukla told IANS, adding, "the earthquake in Sumatra was 8.1 on the Richter scale."

All coastal states in India were put on high alert and battalions of the National Disaster Response Force were galvanised after Indonesia issued the tsunami warning.

The high intensity tremor was reported at 16.40 IST.