At least 55 people died and hundreds were injured after a earthquake of magnitude 5.6 shook on Monday the province of West Java, the most populous in Indonesiawith almost 50 million inhabitants.
As confirmed to the Spanish agency efe the spokesman for the government of Cianjur, the town of West Java, where it had its epicenter, four people died at the Cimacan hospital and 51 at the Sayang hospital in that town.
Gempa bumi dengan magnitude (M) 5.6 dirasakan warga Jakarta dan sekitarnya. Pusat gempa berada di darat 10 km barat daya Kabupaten Cianjur, Provinsi Jawa Barat. Fenomena ini terjadi pada Senin (11/21), pukul 13.21 WIB. Dua warga meninggal dunia. pic.twitter.com/ziXZ590unX
— BNPB Indonesia (@BNPB_Indonesia) November 21, 2022
However, the National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB, in Indonesian), confirmed, for now, only a total of 17 deaths and 19 seriously injured by the earthquake, whose magnitude was updated by the United States Geological Survey, from the initial 5.4 to 5.6.
Speaking to local media, Cianjur’s administrative chief, Herman Suherman, said the tremors have injured around 700 people. “Victims continue to arrive from many areas. Around 700 people were injured, ”he told Kompas TV.
Due to the havoc, roads and highways in the region were closed. Some power distribution stations were affected, causing power outages in several locations. There was also significant damage to homes, at least four government buildings, three schools, a church and several local businesses, according to the latest official balance.
After the initial quake, the Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) recorded 25 aftershocks in just two hours.
Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity in which some 7,000 earthquakes are recorded each year, most of them moderate.
One of the deadliest catastrophes in the country occurred in 2004, when a strong earthquake in the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra generated a tsunami that caused more than 226,000 deaths in a dozen nations bordering the Indian Ocean.
Last Friday another 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia. Its epicenter was marked 212 kilometers southwest of Bengkulu.
With information from EFE, CNN and AP.
