44 dead, 300 injured after 5.6 magnitude earthquake shakes Indonesia’s Java island

An earthquake of 5.4 magnitude hit Indonesia’s main island of Java on Monday, killing at least 44 people and injuring close to 300 others, a local official said. 

Officials further added that almost a dozen buildings were damaged while no casualties or deaths were reported.  According to the US Geological Survey, the quake was centered in the Cianjur region in West Java province, a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). Local officials in Cianjur district said dozens of buildings, including houses, were damaged.

The quake was strongly felt in the greater Jakarta area. High-rises in the capital swayed for more than three minutes and some were evacuated. “The quake felt so strong. My colleagues and I decided to get out of our office on the ninth floor with emergency stairs,” said Vidi Primadhania, an employee in South Jakarta.

Earthquakes occur frequently across the sprawling archipelago nation, but it is uncommon for them to be felt in Jakarta. Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 270 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

In February, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 460 in West Sumatra province. 

In January 2021, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 6,500 in West Sulawesi province. A powerful Indian Ocean quake and tsunami in 2004 killed nearly 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia.

Source - The Associated Press

-Agencies