India, Australia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka on tsunami alert

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Malaysia and Sri Lanka issued tsunami warnings on Wednesday after an earthquake in Indonesia and told people to stay away from beaches, while India also issued an alert for its remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Australia also issued a tsunami warning for its Christmas and Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, urging people to move out of the water and away from low-lying coastal areas.

"We have issued a warning for the south, north and east after the quake," Keerthi Ekanayake, an official at Sri Lanka's National Disaster Management Centre told Reuters.

Sri Lanka and India were battered by the 2004 tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean rim.

India said it was sounding the alert for the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which lie around 1,200 km (750 miles) off its east coast.

"We have issued an alert for the Andaman islands but not for the mainland," Shailesh Nayak, director of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service, told Reuters.

The Indian home ministry's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said it had also told authorities in all coastal areas on the mainland to be vigilant, but the biggest risk appeared to be for the Andamans.

"The warning is red, it is one level below the highest," said an NDMA official, referring to the Andaman islands.

"A tsunami alert has been issued and we are transmitting it to every island," Kishan Saran Singh, the chief of the Disaster Control Committee for the Andaman and Nicobar islands told Reuters.