Magnitude 5.8 Earthquake Depth 20 km Strikes Simeulue, Indonesia on 7th April 2025

Simeulue was once a part of West Aceh Regency but was split off in 1999 and became a separate Simeulue Regency. Its capital is Sinabang.

From the ethnic point of view the inhabitants of Simeulue are similar to the people of neighbouring Nias Island. Two languages and a number of dialects are spoken on the island: Simeulue and Sigulai, which are different from the languages spoken in the north of Sumatra. The majority of the island’s population is Muslim.

On the 4th of January 1907 the 1907 Sumatra earthquake with a 7.5-8 magnitude earthquake shook the seabed off the West coast of Simeulue and caused a tsunami with waves reported to be 10-15 meters high. This tsunami led to the death of more than 50% (some report as high as 70%) of the Simeulue population.

Simeulue was close to the epicentre of the 9.3 magnitude 26 December 2004 earthquake.

On 28 March 2005, an 8.7 magnitude earthquake struck with its epicentre just off the south end of the island. During the earthquake, Simeulue rose at least 2 metre (6 ft) on the western coast; this left the flat top of its coral reefs above high tide. On the east coast, the land was submerged, with seawater flooding fields and settlements.

Although Simeulue Island was only 60 km from the epicentre of the 2004 earthquake, whereas Banda Aceh – the city that was hit hardest by the tsunami – was about 250 km away, only seven residents on Simeulue died, while the remaining 70,000 survived. This has been argued to have been due to local wisdom of the ‘smong’ (meaning Tsunami) that educates the listener in the warning signs of a tsunami and advises them to seek higher ground.

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