PENANG: Most Penangites were not aware of the tsunami alert and many were still enjoying the cool sea breeze at the Esplanade and Gur-ney Drive last night.
A check by The Star found that most had not heard about the 8.2 magnitude earthquake off Sumatra until police officers in patrol cars arri-ved, and and instructed them to stay away from the beaches.
Driver Ismail Abu Bakar, 40, had just parked his motorcycle at the Esplande when he heard about the alert from the police.
“I did not know about the earthquake. Now I am a little worried and I think it is best to leave,” he said.
Three Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) students, who were fishing at Esplanade, also packed up their equipment and left.
One of the students, who wanted to be known only as David, said that he and his two friends had heard about the Indonesian earthquake on the car radio but they went on with their plans as they were already there.
“We are not really worried about it. We have been advised to watch the water and if it suddenly subsides, we should make a run,” the 23-year-old said.
Many like them complied with the police’s instructions. However, some did not heed the alert.
Earlier, some residents at Sri Tanjong, Jalan Perak, felt tremors in their apartments.
A resident, Tan Lay Hoon, 49, staying on the eighth floor, said that she noticed her chair shaking while she was reading the newspaper.
“It was about 7.20pm when I felt the tre-mors. They lasted about four minutes. I was shocked so I went over to my neighbour’s and asked her if she had felt anything. She thought she was dizzy due to her high blood pressure.
“I later called up a friend who lives at Lebuh Macallum. She also felt the tremors. We later found out from the news that there was an earthquake in Indonesia,” she said.
However, Tan was not afraid when she felt the tremors and did not leave her apartment, saying that she had encountered stronger tre-mors before during previous incidents.
According to the state Meteorological De-partment, the tsunami alert was called off at 11pm.
Source: The Star Online
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