Nearly 20 dead, as Indonesia’s Java hit by 5.6 magnitude earthquake

On Monday, a 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck Java, the largest island in Indonesia. According to local authorities, around a dozen structures were destroyed, but no injuries or fatalities were reported. The earthquake’s epicentre was located at a depth of 10 kilometres in the Cianjur district of West Java province, according to the US Geological Survey (6.2 miles). Authorities in the Cianjur district reported damage to dozens of structures, including homes.

The greater Jakarta area felt the tremor very strongly. For more than three minutes, the capital’s high-rises shook, and some residents were forced to flee.

The vast archipelago nation experiences earthquakes frequently, but they are rarely noticed in Jakarta. Due to its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin, which is home to more than 270 million people, Indonesia, a vast archipelago, is frequently affected by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis.

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck West Sumatra province in February resulted in at least 25 fatalities and over 460 injuries. A magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck West Sulawesi province in January 2021 resulted in more than 100 fatalities and approximately 6,500 injuries. In 2004, a devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean killed approximately 230,000 people in a dozen nations, the majority of them in Indonesia.