India downgrades all tsunami warnings

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday downgraded tsunami alerts across the country that had been issued after an 8.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra.

"The expected period of significant tsunami waves is now over for all threatened Indian coastal areas," said a bulletin from the national tsunami early warning centre in the southern city of Hyderabad.

An official at the centre, S. A Kishore, said the highest tsunami warning level issued for the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal had been downgraded from red to orange.