There are reports of a three-metre tsunami following an earthquake off Indonesia’s Sumatra island last night.

Australian Rick Hallett has told the Nine Network he was on his charter boat with guests when the wall of water rolled into their bay in the Mentawai Islands.

He said it picked up one boat and pitched it towards theirs, which burst into flames and exploded.

Mr Hallett said he’d ordered everyone onto the top deck and they threw anything that floated into the water, including surfboards and fenders, and jumped in.

He said several of them were carried 200 metres inland and scrambled up trees where they stayed for an hour and a half as the sea heaved.

He said that amazingly no one on his boat was lost .but he saw a lot of debris, possibly from a resort on Pagai Island.

The US Geological Survey says the 7.5-magnitude temblor struck at a depth of 30 kilometres and is centered on a small island off the coast of Sumatra, where a massive earthquake and tsunami hit in 2004.
 

– Sky News

– Watch Sky News New Zealand, channel 90, for the latest on this developing story