At least 162 people, the majority of which are reportedly children, have been killed and hundreds more injured after an earthquake on Indonesia’s Java island, officials have said. The magnitude 5.6 earthquake toppled buildings and collapsed walls on the densely populated island on Monday, November 21.
Residents fled damaged homes after the quake shook the Cianjur region in West Java province at a depth of 6.2 miles. The tremor also caused panic in the greater Jakarta area, where high-rises swayed with many being evacuated.
Emergency workers treated the injured on stretchers and blankets outside main hospitals and in car parks after the tremor, while rescue teams looked for others who may have been buried in the debris of collapsed brick houses. The quake was powerful enough to bring down walls, chunks of concrete and roof tiles, some of which landed inside bedrooms.
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West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil said the number of confirmed dead has now risen to 162. “The majority of those who died were children,” he said. Many were public school students who had finished their regular classes and were taking extra lessons at Islamic schools, he said.
Kamil said more than 13,000 people whose homes had been heavily damaged were being taken to evacuation centres. Around 700 people were injured, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency chief Suharyanto said. Among the dozens of buildings that were damaged was an Islamic boarding school, a hospital and other public facilities, the agency said.
Most of the victims and survivors were taken to the government hospital in Cianjur, where emergency tents were erected and workers treated the injured.
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency recorded at least 25 aftershocks. Earthquakes occur frequently across the sprawling archipelago nation, but it is uncommon for them to be felt in Jakarta.
The country 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.
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