Wednesday 20 February

After a night with wind and rain, the morning turned out fairly bright, although I distrust the sky. Showers may occur, although the next lot of rain is moving in from the west. In other words, the weather has changed.

My sidebar contains information about my present location, which is the town of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in Western Scotland. And the mound of rock, earth and grass was an islet, across the bay from me, seen at low tide. I call it Green Island, although it is an outlier of Goat Island. This was a proper island until 1946, when a causeway was built to it.

An earthquake has shaken the Indonesian province of Aceh this morning, at 8.08am GMT (3.08 pm local time). It measured 7.5 on the Richter scale, and was felt in the province's capital Banda Aceh, 185 miles to the east. The quake appears to have killed 3 people. Warnings for a possible tsunami were issued, but later cancelled. The tremor occurred near the epicentre of the massive 9.1 quake which triggered a tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Indonesia is located in an area very prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.
Back in 1883, Mt Krakatoa exploded in a cataclysmic eruption, triggering a huge tsunami, reckoned to be 30 metres high. Krakatoa is located near the southern end of Sumatra; Aceh is in the north of that island.