The death toll from the earthquake that struck the city of Chianjur on the Indonesian island of West Java has risen to 252, a local official told AFP on Tuesday.
The local administration in Chanjur announced the new tolls in an Instagram post. West Java local government spokesman Adam, who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name, confirmed the new casualty figures to AFP. A 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit the Indonesian island of Java on Monday, damaging buildings and shaking some as far as the capital Jakarta, 100km away, officials said. The earthquake also resulted in hundreds of injuries. Doctors treated patients outdoors, and hospitals in the West Java city of Chanjur were left without power for several hours. On Monday, Indonesia’s disaster management agency said 25 people were still trapped under the rubble by nightfall. The agency indicated that more than 2,000 houses were damaged and 5,000 people were transferred to evacuation points.
Radvan Kamil noted that by the evening the power supply had been partially restored, without specifying whether the power was supplied through generators or through a connection to the power grid. Kamil previously said the data indicated that “more than 700 people were injured. And with many people still stranded at the crash site, we expect the number of injuries and deaths to rise over time.”
Local newspapers reported that shops, a hospital and an Islamic boarding school were severely damaged in the city as a result of the earthquake. The media showed several buildings in Chianjur whose roofs had collapsed. “Hundreds or even thousands of houses were damaged,” Adam, a local government official in Chianjur, told AFP.
According to the US Geological Survey, the epicenter was in the Chianjur region of West Java and was also felt 100 km from Jakarta when residents took to the streets in panic. No major damage was immediately reported in Jakarta.
Lawyer Mayadita Valio, 22, described the panic among employees rushing to the emergency exits, saying: “I was working when the ground shook. I clearly felt a tremble.” An AFP correspondent said hundreds of people were waiting outside after the quake, some wearing hard hats to protect themselves from falling debris.
Indonesia regularly experiences earthquakes or volcanic eruptions due to its location in the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates meet. In 2018, the island of Lombok and the neighboring island of Sumbawa were hit by a massive earthquake that killed more than 550 people.
That same year, another 7.5 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit Palu on the island of Sulawesi, killing or disappearing some 4,300 people.
