INDONESIA: Indonesia suffered from an earthquake that took numerous life. At least 20 people were killed and 300 were hurt when a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Java, the largest island in the country, on Monday.
In West Java, the epicentre was close to the town of Cianjur. Buildings are reportedly destroyed after a shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake that shook Indonesia’s Java island. The earthquake shook highrises in Jakarta’s capital as well.
The top official in the West Java town that was hit the hardest by the earthquake said that the deaths were counted in one hospital alone, but he didn’t give a specific number. Many more people in nearby villages haven’t been evacuated yet.
“I currently know that this hospital alone is treating 300 patients, and that 20 or so of them have already passed away. Most of them were fractured from being trapped in building ruins,” Cianjur’s administration chief, Herman Suherman, reportedly told sources.
The video of the incident also started to circulate on the internet which provided a clear glimpse of the earthquake. The footage depicted the roofs of several Cianjur buildings collapsing.
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake that shook the country and killed at least 20 people issued a warning to those living near the epicentre. Most likely, there will be more casualties.
Dwikorita Karnawati, the chief of Indonesia’s meteorology service, told reporters, “We call on people to stay outside the buildings for now as there might be potential aftershocks.”
Indonesia’s location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where tectonic plates collide, causes frequent seismic and volcanic activity. Similar to this, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake on the island of Sulawesi in January 2021 killed over 100 people and left thousands homeless.
In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra Island in northern Indonesia triggered a tsunami that struck 14 countries, killing 2,26,000 people along the Indian Ocean coastline, more than half of them were Indonesians.
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