Sri Lanka issues tsunami warning

As a massive earthquake measuring 8.7 hit the nearby Indonesian island of Banda Aceh, Sri Lanka issued a countrywide tsunami warning asking residents in the coastal belt to move to higher ground.

"We advise people to move inland at least a kilometre from the coast", a disaster management centre official said. Officials said if the quake in Sumatra triggered a Tsunami, Sri Lanka's southern coastal Dondra should experience it by 4.09 pm (local time).

The quake in Indonesia was felt in Sri Lanka as people moved out of buildings around 2.15 local time. Two-thirds of Sri Lanka's coastal belt was devastated by the December 2004 Tsunami which killed over 30,000 people.