A massive earthquake off

Indonesia lifted a tsunami warning which was issued following a massive 8.9 earthquake. "People can return to their homes," Sri Woro Harijono, head of Indonesia s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), said on Metro TV. Panicked residents, remembering a 2004 tsunami that killed 170,000 people on Sumatra s Aceh province, poured out of their homes and fled coastal areas after the massive quake, which was followed by an 8.2-magnitude aftershock. Indonesia cancelled the warning shortly after the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii lifted its Indian Ocean-wide tsunami alert. At least three tsunamis of up to 80 centimetres (31 inches) hit Indonesia s coast after the initial earthquake, BMKG monitor Said Kristiawan told AFP before the warning was lifted. The earthquake’s movement was horizontal, not vertical, and caused no apparent movement of the sea floor, which is what triggers tsunamis, Susanne Sargeant, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey (BGS) told AFP.