Images of quake seabed released

Images of quake seabed released

BRITAIN: A British Navy survey ship on Wednesday released the first images of the seabed at the epicenter of last year's killer earthquake and tsunami that reveal the massive canyons and ridges left by the collision of two of the earth's plates.

The Royal Navy's HMS Scott has been taking underwater sonar readings off the Indonesian island of Sumatra to try to find out how the Dec. 26 earthquake unfolded and then produced the giant waves that have killed nearly 300,000 people in 11 countries.

The ship's officers presented the readings in the form of colored digital mapping at the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office in Taunton, Somerset, southwest England, indicating a large landslide some 100 meters high by two kilometers in length.

HMS Scott's Commanding Officer Steve Malcolm said initial assessments by scientists indicate two of the earth's tectonic plates clashed together, causing a ridge on the seabed which forced sea water to travel upwards to form the devastating tsunami.

It must have occurred "like the rumpling up of a carpet," he said.

He said he hoped the survey would give a warning as to when this could happen again "with the aim of removing the likelihood of such a terrible loss of life".

HMS Scott's survey will provide the "base map" for future extensive research into the process of how earthquakes work and how they produce tsunamis. --AFP