Thursday, March 17 2005 11:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Hyderabad: India has come geographically closer to Indonesia by 12 centimetres after the giant earthquake on December 26, 2004, according to scientists at the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) in Hyderabad.

The NGRI report comes close on the heels of the announcement by geologists in Trivandrum that the Islands of Andaman and Nicobar have shifted Southwest by a few metres immediately after the quake.

Both teams had analysed the data from Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers positioned at different Islands.

Vineet Gahalaut and his team at NGRI that did an independent geodetic survey using the same GPS receivers found that the distance between Bangalore in India and Medan in Sumatra had shrunk by 12 centimetres.

The NGRI analysis also suggests that cities in southern India "might have experienced eastward horizontal movement of up to 10 mm after the quake," Gahalaut said.

He said that this was also confirmed from GPS data at Hyderabad and Bangalore.