The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that Indonesia’s main island of Java has been hit by a strong earthquake today.
The earthquake had a magnitude of 5.6, with its epicenter located in the Cianjur region in the west of the island.
The tremors caused vast devastation in the area, with dozens of people having been killed by the tremors, according to local authorities.
“Hundreds, even maybe thousands of houses are damaged. So far, 44 people have died,” the spokesman for the local administration in the town of Cianjur said.
Cianjur town and district, which has an estimated population of almost 175,000 people, is located some 120 kilometers south-east of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.
Earlier, the head of Cianjur’s administration talked about several dozen fatalities and at least 300 people getting injured, with most of them hospitalized with “fractures from being trapped by the ruins of buildings.”
The tremors from the earthquake have been felt as far as the capital city of Jakarta, with people there rushing outside of buildings. However, there have been no reports so far of fatalities or destruction in Indonesia’s capital.
The country’s meteorological agency warned residents that “there might be potential aftershocks” and called on householders to refrain from returning to their homes for now.
Indonesia is located along the so-called ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, where several tectonic plates meet, resulting in the majority of the world’s volcanoes and earthquakes, and is no stranger to deadly earthquakes.
A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit the country’s Sulawesi Island in January of last year, killing more than 100 people and destroying thousands of homes.
