The 2000 Sumatra earthquake struck at 23:30 local time on June 4, 2000 off the coast of southern Sumatra, Indonesia with a magnitude of 7.9 Mw. The United States Geological Survey reported 103 fatalities, in addition to 2,174 injured people. Over 730 aftershocks shocked the area afterwards, one just eleven minutes after the main earthquake.
This was the first and southernmost in a series of very large to great Sumatran earthquakes in the 2000s to rupture almost the entire western part of the Sunda megathrust, most notably including the 9.1-9.3 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, but also the 8.6-8.7 2005 Sumatra earthquake, and the 7.9-8.5 September 2007 Sumatra earthquakes.
Read more about 2000 Sumatra Earthquake: Background and Tectonics, Damage and Casualties, Aftermath and Response
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“Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)