Tsunami quake may have activated Thai fault line

Tsunami quake may have activated Thai fault line

Thai researchers and media warned on Thursday the earthquake that
triggered the Asian tsunami may have moved the tourist resort
island of Phuket by 15 centimeters (six inches) and activated an
offshore fault line.

"We have sent a team to investigate initial reports that
Phuket as well as the whole area (in the Andaman Sea) has shifted
southwest," the head of Chulalongkorn University's survey
engineering department, Chugiat Wichiencharoen, told AFP.

The shift was noticed by a team of international experts from
France, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Thailand which
reported the findings to the university survey team.

"The shift is a large one if you consider that the usual rate
is about two millimeters a year," said Chugiat, adding the change
would however be unnoticeable to people living in the area.

Geologists were more concerned with a 10-centimeter crack
discovered offshore in Ranong province near a passive fault line
that crosses the border between Thailand and Myanmar, said the
Bangkok Post newspaper.

It quoted a report saying villagers had found "a stream of
bubbles popping up from the crack in more volume and at a speed
greater than those of boiling water."

The director of Thailand's Geology Office told the rival
Nation newspaper a one-kilometer stretch of the ocean floor
appeared to have split open as a consequence of the quake some
500 metres offshore and seven meters under the water.

"It's possible that the December 26 earthquake has revived the
dormant Ranong fault. When a fault becomes active it releases
bubbles," he said.

He did not say what the possible consequences of a reactivated
fault line would be.

The tsunami that killed nearly 220,000 people around the
Indian Ocean was triggered by a powerful earthquake, registering
9.0 on the Richter scale, that struck off Sumatra, Indonesia. -- AFP