About 700 people were injured, according to Cianjur community chief Herman Suherman. The tremor, the magnitude of which was 5.6 according to the US earthquake monitoring station (USGS), occurred around noon about 70 kilometers south-east of the capital Jakarta at a depth of ten kilometers.
Some areas are not yet accessible due to landslides. In addition, many of the injured could not be treated because there were not enough staff available, he said. Live images from the Metro TV station showed dozens of people waiting in a parking lot in front of a hospital in Cianjur and receiving only scant care.
In Cianjur, more than 1,700 buildings were damaged or destroyed, a spokesman for the National Civil Protection said. The head of the National Disaster Management said most of the victims were killed by debris from their collapsing houses. At the time of the earthquake, however, many people were not at home.
The earthquake was also clearly felt in the metropolis of Jakarta. High-rise buildings swayed, but no major damage was initially reported in the city. There was no tsunami warning.
Indonesia’s meteorological agency warned people in the hardest-hit region of aftershocks. They should remain outdoors for the time being, said agency chief Dwikorita Karnawati.
Indonesia has around 270 million inhabitants, more than half of whom live on the main island of Java. The island nation lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the most geologically active zone on earth. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common there.
The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently has 79 travelers in Indonesia registered, as well as 257 Austrians living abroad and their families permanently in Indonesia. “To date, we have had no indication that Austrians could have been injured in the earthquake in Indonesia,” said the ministry when asked by the APA.
In February, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake on the island of Sumatra killed nearly 20 people. More than 400 were injured. In 2018, more than 550 people died in an earthquake on the islands of Lombok and Sumbawa. In the same year, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck Sulawesi: Around 4,300 people died or have been missing since then. The 9.1 magnitude earthquake that struck on December 26, 2004 off the coast of Sumatra is still remembered. The resulting tsunami killed 220,000 people across the region, 170,000 of them in Indonesia alone.