Indonesia counts coral deaths cost of '05 tsunami
A 2005 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia pushed an island four feet out of the water, causing one of the biggest cases of coral deaths recorded, scientists said today.
Researchers surveying the island of Simeulue last month found that most corals along its 190-mile perimeter had been partly raised out of the water by the 2005 earthquake, with the exposed parts dying off. It is believed to be the first time that scientist have documented the impacts on corals from a quake.
“The scale of it was quite extraordinary,” said Andrew Baird, of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef, who took part in the survey with scientist from the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Exposed corals were everywhere.”
Baird, who said their findings would be published later this year, said exposed corals stretched from a few yards from shore to as far as 500 yards.
“Some species suffered up to 100 per cent loss at some sites, and different species now dominate the shallow reef,” he said.
More than 900 people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless in the 8.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Nias, Banyak and Simeulue islands off the coast of Sumatra.
The quake came three months after the 2004 tsunami, which left 230,000 people in a dozen Indian Ocean countries dead or missing.
