DEC 27: The Sunday quake was so powerful it made the earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional map, US geophysicists said. It may have moved small islands as much as 20 meters (66 feet), according to one expert. "That earthquake has changed the map," US Geological Survey expert Ken Hudnut told AFP.

According to another expert, the quake may have altered earth's rotation. It may have shortened the day by 3 microseconds, said gravity expert Richard Gross of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena... On premise a slab slid into core, Gross said he's done calculations 'to see what effect this (earthquake) should have had.' The result: A day shortened... 'We won't know for weeks,' said a geophysicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'So it's a guess, as of now'...

Scientists describe Sunday's devastating earthquake off the island of Sumatra as a "megathrust" -- a grade reserved for the most powerful shifts in the Earth's crust. according to geologist Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology, "Sunday was one of the biggest earthquakes in the region in the past 200 years." How powerful? By some estimates, it was equal to detonating a million atomic bombs. Sieh and other scientists said it probably jolted the planet's rotation. "It causes the planet to wobble a little bit, but it's not going to turn Earth upside down," Sieh said.

Giant quakes also rocked the area in 1797, 1833 and 1861. But they were preludes to Sunday's event.

More than 12,000 people have died in Sri Lanka, nearly 5,000 in Indonesia, and 4,000 in India. The International Red Cross has reported 23,700 deaths.

Late Monday, Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla was quoted as saying he believed the toll in the country could be as high as 25,000, that would be 20,000 more deaths than confirmed there so far and push the overall death toll to 42,000.

Sunday's massive quake of 9.0 magnitude off the Indonesian island of Sumatra's northern tip sent 500-mph waves surging across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in the deadliest known tsunami since the one caused by the 1883 volcanic eruption at Krakatoa - located off Sumatra's southern tip - which killed an estimated 36,000 people.


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The magnitude-9.0 earthquake that struck Indonesia Sunday was the world's fourth most powerful since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

1. May 22, 1960, magnitude-9.5, Chile.

2. March 28, 1964, magnitude-9.2, Prince William Sound, Alaska.

3. March 9, 1957, magnitude-9.1, Andreanof Islands, Alaska.

4. Dec. 26, 2004, magnitude-9.0, Sumatra, Indonesia.

4. Nov. 4, 1952, magnitude-9.0, Kamchatka peninsula, Soviet Union (now Russia).

6. Jan. 31, 1906, magnitude-8.8, off the coast of Ecuador.

7. Feb. 4, 1965, magnitude-8.7, Rat Islands, Alaska.

8. Aug. 15, 1950, magnitude-8.6, Tibet.

9. Feb. 3, 1923, magnitude-8.5, Kamchatka.

9. Feb. 1, 1938, magnitude-8.5, Banda Sea, Indonesia.

9. Oct. 13, 1963, magnitude-8.5, Kuril Islands