http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/indonesia.quake/index.html#cnnSTCTexthttp://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/09/17/indonesia.quake/index.html%23cnnSTCText
September 18, 2007 -- Updated 0229 GMT (1029 HKT)
Indonesia's big one 'on its way'
PADANG, Indonesia (CNN) -- An international team of earthquake
specialists says Indonesia faces another potential "giant" quake in
the near future.
CNN traveled to the earthquake zone with a scientist who deliberately
puts himself in the path of the world's most powerful quakes.
Smack on the equator, Indonesia's Sumatra island holds the deadliest
stretch of ocean in the world.
"You'd see a strip 30 meters high, stripped down to bedrock," says
John Galetzka, a former U.S. Army ranger who is now adventuring on
another frontline as an earthquake geologist. He is investigating the
fault line that sparked the 2004 tsunami and, in recent days, three
more powerful quakes.
Last Friday, Galetzka shot video footage of the shaking beach, with
startled locals scrambling upshore.
His thoughts turned immediately to the tsunami danger, and his command
ship offshore. Just moments later he caught the panic near the beach,
as he saw families evacuating to the hills about 200 meters behind
their village.
The day before, another big quake struck -- larger, but further away.
Galetzka recalls the long slow waves and a shivering water bottle. For
the American geologist, this is where theory meets reality.
"I just felt like the luckiest man alive to feel two strong events,"
he says. "You can almost hear the excitement in my voice -- oh my
gosh, this is it, this is it ..."
He has established a network of position-markers, linked by satellite,
that show a constant creep, northeast, among the islands on
Indonesia's Indian Ocean frontier. The first one was placed in August
2002.
The 30 measuring stations along Sumatra's western coast tell an
ominous tale. Driven by the plate beneath the Indian Ocean, the entire
coastline is flexing, as the earth literally bends. The pressures are
already enormous, and at some point probably soon, they will become
intolerable.
The implications are terrifying.
"Eventually it has got to release in (the form) of giant earthquake,"
states Galetzka matter-of-factly.
It could be a rare magnitude-9 quake, and with the plates so tightly
sprung, it will happen sooner, he believes, rather than later.
Knowing what he knows, does he worry about the people living along
this coast?
"I absolutely do," he replies. "I tell them to be prepared. Whenever I
am in Padang I think about my escape routes, almost every moment."
As he criss-crosses around the islands, searching for data, Galetzka
says his aim is to save lives. But he, more than anyone, knows the
risks -- that one day he'll confront a giant wave, a tsunami powerful
enough to swallow islands.
The geologist's voice quivers as he imagines "the big one."
"If we saw it, we'd just head right into it. I'd shake your hand and
say, good luck!"
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HOOROO
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