A great aftershock to the 2004 megaquake, three months later on the neighbouring fault segment — itself among the largest earthquakes of the century.
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DownloadThe 2005 Nias earthquake struck on March 28, 2005, registering magnitude 8.6 (moment magnitude, Mw). Each whole step on the moment-magnitude scale is roughly 32 times more energy, so this released on the order of 7,943× the energy of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
Its epicenter was located near 2.08°N, 97.11°E, at a depth of about 30 km — a shallow crustal earthquake. Shallow earthquakes like this release their energy close to the surface, which is why the shaking near the epicenter was so violent.
An estimated 1,319 people were killed.