Between 1,000 and 2,000 people on Indonesia's Nias island may have been killed in the massive earthquake that struck off the country's western coast late Monday, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said.

"It is predicted... that the number of the victims of dead may be between 1,000 and 2,000," Kalla told the local el-Shinta radio station.

The quake, which hit triggered tsunami warnings around the Indian Ocean, forced governments in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and other Indian Ocean countries to ask people in coastal areas to immediately evacuate.

The warnings were later called off after it became clear that the quake did not cause a tsunami.

The sub-sea quake, measured over 8.0 on the Richter scale, struck at 23:15 local time (16:15 GMT) some 90 kilometers southeast of the island of Sinabang, which lies off the southern coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island.

The Los Angeles-based US Geological Survey said the earthquake measured magnitude 8.2 while Japan's Meteorological Agency measured it at magnitude 8.5. But the US agency raised it to 8.7 hours later.

The earthquake, which lasted three minutes, was also felt in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
 
(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2005)