A real nightmare...

M8.5 (JMA) quake near Sumatra
Just as I was going to sleep, info about a large quake striking the Indian Ocean at around 1:10 AM JST jumped in!
The JMA put it at a magnitude of 8.5, the USGS at 8.7. Rushed to my office, and ran around for about five and a half hours to cover the story... There's reports of deaths in the Nias Island of Indonesia, but none of a large tsunami. ???

Well, I was told to rest a while, so I'll take a nap and see what kind of updates are coming in when I wake up... Zzz...

Story from Kyodo pasted below

M8.7 quake occurs near Sumatra, killing nearly 300 people
JAKARTA, March 29, Kyodo - (EDS: UPDATING DEATH TOLL)

Nearly 300 people were killed on Indonesia's Nias Island after a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 8.7 rocked the northwestern coast of Sumatra Island late Monday and triggered tsunami warnings in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
A physician on Nias Island told a local radio station early Tuesday he confirmed the bodies of 296 people. Other island officials separately said about 500 houses were destroyed.
''A great earthquake occurred'' at 11:09 p.m. local time, the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding the magnitude 8.7 quake, up from an initially estimated 8.2, ''has been located in northern Sumatra, Indonesia,'' about 1,400 kilometers northwest of capital Jakarta.
Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka issued tsunami alerts following the quake.
U.S. Geological Survey officials said the quake is believed to be an aftershock of the Dec. 26 killer quake which rocked the same region and triggered tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. Almost 300,000 people were killed in the quake and tsunami disaster.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the latest earthquake measured a preliminary magnitude of 8.5, compared with the Dec. 26 quake's magnitude 9.0.
''The energy of the latest earthquake was about one-sixth of the previous one, but I have never heard of an aftershock of this size,'' said Katsuyuki Abe, director of the University of Tokyo's Earthquake Information Center.
The latest quake was felt in Medan and Padang and other areas on Sumatra Island, local residents said. Indonesia's Metro TV reported that power failure hit Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh Province.
In Singapore, the quake caused tremors in many parts of the country, a Singapore meteorological agency official said. But the National Environment Agency said, ''There is unlikely to be any other impact on Singapore.''
Police said they received more than 1,000 phone calls from people in the small island-state inquiring about tremors that were felt in many parts of Singapore, causing residents to evacuate high-rise buildings.
But there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
India said it is taking all precautionary measures with its defense forces on full alert to meet with an impending disaster. It is advising people living along the coastal areas of its three southern states and the Andaman and Nicobar islands to evacuate from their houses.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil spoke with chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh and asked them to issue a tsunami alert and evacuate people living along the eastern and southern coasts.
Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee told a private television news channel that armed forces including the navy and coast guard are on full alert and all systems are in place. The emergency control room of the home ministry has already been activated to coordinate the disaster control activities, media reports said.
Some Indian experts said the tsunami would take at least three hours to reach the Indian coast.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake induced a small tsunami on Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
The Japanese agency said it relayed quake data to Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, India and Malaysia, which were seriously affected by the last tsunami disaster.
The latest temblor came shortly after a Japanese scientist who was involved in a study on the Dec. 26 disaster that devastated Aceh Province warned that a powerful earthquake may occur in the central to southern part of Sumatra in the future.
''Aceh (in northern Sumatra) is stable at the moment, but there is a high possibility that a large-scale earthquake may happen in the middle or southern part of Sumatra,'' Wataru Azuma of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology told reporters in Jakarta.