United Nations officials say they are taking steps to alert residents along Somalia's coast to the possibility of another tsunami hitting the Horn of Africa.

The effort is being made after an underwater earthquake, with a magnitude over 8.0, struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra Monday.

After a similar earthquake in late December a tsunami struck Somalia along with a number of Asian countries leaving more than 270,000 people dead.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Maxwell Gaylard, told VOA Monday that if a tsunami were to result from Monday's earthquake it would hit Somalia in the early hours of the morning.

He says U.N. workers are advising coastal communities to move far away from the danger areas.