A powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Java on Saturday, injuring one person, in the same region where another earthquake killed more than 330 people two weeks earlier.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the magnitude 5.7 quake struck at a depth of 112.5 km 18 km southeast of the city of Banjar in West Java.
The Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climate and Geophysics (BMKG), for its part, assessed the magnitude of this quake at 6.4, which shook buildings even in the capital Jakarta.
an injured person
At least one person was injured and hospitalized, the head of the disaster management agency, Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians only goes by one name, announced on Metro TV. No major damage was reported at first.
The Indonesian news agency BMKG said the quake had shaken buildings in the city of Garut (western Java island) and warned residents near the epicenter of the risk of aftershocks. But there is no tsunami threat, he added.
“There were people who ran away when the quake hit, but they went back to their activities,” local relief official Budi Satria told local broadcaster Kompas. “Thank God, so far everything is safe.”
The island was already hit by an earthquake on November 21
Already hit by a deadly earthquake on November 21, residents of the city of Cianjur, also in West Java, also felt the quake on Saturday. Some roofs were damaged, a local military official, Haryanto, told Kompas.
“We could see the hanging lights swaying,” he explained.
On November 21, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck shallow near Cianjur, killing at least 331 people, destroying many buildings, and triggering deadly landslides.
It was the deadliest earthquake in Indonesia since 2018, when the Palu region of Celebes Island was hit by an earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 4,000 people.
Situated on the Pacific “ring of fire” where tectonic plates meet, Indonesia is regularly faced with earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.
Source: BFM TV
