By Chang Ai-Lien, Science Correspondent

AS PROPHETS of doom go, geologist Kerry Sieh is a fairly mild mannered version but he more than compensates by having a pretty terrifying tale to tell.

It centres on Padang and the tectonic time bomb it is sitting on.

The five major quakes that have struck the Sumatran city this decade are forming a kind of seismic countdown to the king hit Professor Sieh fears is approaching.

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