Well warning in tsunami zone

The South Asian earthquake that spawned deadly tsunami waves also shifted water levels by at least three feet in a geologically sensitive Virginia well some 9,600 miles away from the epicentre, researchers say.

The well, near Christiansburg, which started oscillating about an hour after the magnitude 9 quake near Sumatra on December 26, is particularly sensitive to movements in the Earth and is monitored by the US Geological Survey.

David Nelms, a groundwater specialist with the USGS in Richmond, saw the changes from his computer.

“It just shot up and then it went down below where it originally was,” Nelms told the Richmond Times-Dispatch for Saturday’s editions, adding that it took about five hours for the water to stop fluctuating.