Up to 20 people were killed after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s West Java province on Monday, a local official said.Herman Suherman, a government official from Cianjur, the city in West Java where the epicenter of the earthquake was located, told news station MetroTV that up to 20 people had died and 300 others were injured.
“This is from one hospital, there are four hospitals in Cianjur,” he said, adding that the number of dead and injured could rise. The National Disaster Agency reported 14 dead. Monday’s earthquake hit land in Cianjur, about 75 km southeast of the capital Jakarta, and at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), the Meteorological and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) said, adding that there was no potential for a tsunami. The National Disaster Agency said in a statement that several houses and an Islamic boarding school in the area were damaged as officials continued to assess the full extent of the damage.
Footage from Metro TV showed some buildings in Cianjur almost completely reduced to rubble as worried residents huddled outside. Muchlis, who was in Cianjur when the earthquake struck, said he felt “huge tremors” and the walls and ceiling of his office building were damaged. “I was very shocked. I was afraid there would be another earthquake,” Muchlis told Metro TV, adding that people were running out of their houses, some fainting and vomiting in response.
Within two hours of the earthquake, 25 aftershocks were recorded, the BMKG said. In the capital, Jakarta, some people evacuated offices in the central business district, while others reported feeling buildings shake and seeing furniture move. Indonesia straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seismically active zone where different plates on the Earth’s crust meet, creating a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.
