A 5.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 160 people, according to authorities, and injured hundreds more in Indonesia’s West Java region on Monday, with rescuers scrambling to reach survivors trapped under massive aftershocks.
The attack was near the town of Cianjur in West Java, about 75 kilometers southeast of the capital Jakarta, where some buildings were shaken and some offices were displaced.
Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) spokesman Abdul Muhari said the search would continue overnight.
“Many buildings collapsed and collapsed,” West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil told reporters.
“There are people living in remote areas … so we think the number of injuries and deaths will increase over time.”
Indonesia straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a zone where frequent earthquakes and where different plates of the Earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.
BNPB says that more than 2,200 houses have been destroyed and more than 5,300 people have been displaced.
Electricity was low and this was disrupting communication services, Herman Suherman, the head of the Cianjur government, said, adding that the flood was preventing people from fleeing in one area.
Hundreds of victims were being treated in the hospital parking lot, some under an emergency tent. Elsewhere in Cianjur, people huddled on mats in the yard or in tents while the buildings around them were reduced to rubble.
Authorities were still working to determine the extent of the damage from the earthquake, which struck at a distance of 10 kilometers, according to the Meteorological and Geophysical Agency (BMKG).
A woman named Vani, who was receiving treatment at the Cianjur General Hospital, told MetroTV that the walls of her house collapsed when the earthquake struck later.
“Walls and clothes just fell down… Everything was flat; I don’t even know where my mother and father are,” he said.
In just two hours, 25 aftershocks have occurred, the BMKG said, adding that there are concerns about landslides during the storm.
In Jakarta, some people evacuated offices in the central business district, while others reported buildings shaking and furniture moving, Reuters witnesses said.
In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake on the island of Sumatra in northern Indonesia triggered a tsunami that hit 14 countries, killing 226,000 people along the Indian Ocean, more than half of whom were killed in Indonesia.
