According to officials, an earthquake that shook Java, the largest island in Indonesia, has left at least 14 people dead and hundreds more injured.
According to data from the US Geological Survey, the earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 impacted Cianjur town in West Java at a shallow depth of 10 km (6 miles).
About 100 kilometres away, in Jakarta, the capital, individuals in tall buildings were evacuated as a result of the tremor.
The death toll might increase and there could be aftershocks, according to officials.
Social media videos document the harm done to people’s homes and businesses.
BBC News reported that, at least 300 people were being treated for injuries at one hospital in Cianjur, Herman Suherman, a government official there, told news channel MetroTV.
Most of the injuries were bone fractures sustained from being trapped by debris in buildings.
Rescuers have been trying to evacuate people from collapsed buildings, and managed to save a woman and her baby, according to local reports.
In Jakarta, office workers rushed out of buildings in the civic and business district during the tremor, which lasted for about a minute.
“I was working when the floor under me was shaking. I could feel the tremor clearly. I tried to do nothing to process what it was, but it became even stronger and lasted for some time,” lawyer Mayadita Waluyo told the AFP news agency.
An office worker named Ahmad Ridwan told Reuters: “We are used to this [earthquakes] in Jakarta, but people were so nervous just now, so we also panicked.”
Earthquakes are common in Indonesia which sits on the “ring of fire” area of tectonic activity in the Pacific.
Leave a Reply