One dies and 17 injured in West Java earthquake<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): One person died, 17 others were injured and 160
\nhouses were damaged after a strong quake jolted West Java on
\nTuesday, an official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency
\nsaid on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\"All the victims were residents of the Panimbang district in
\nthe Pandeglang regency of West Java,\" the Agency spokesman Waan
\nTarmin said.<\/p>\n
Tarmin did not provide details of the incidents.<\/p>\n
The Panimbang district is located some 100 kilometers away
\nfrom the quake's epicenter in the Indian Ocean. The epicenter was
\nlocated some 200 kilometers southwest of Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Tarmin said other neighboring districts heavily jolted by the
\nquake were Sumyur, Cibaliung and Pagelaran districts. All are
\nalso located in the same regency.<\/p>\n
Tarmin said fatalities had yet to be reported in the last
\nthree districts.<\/p>\n
\"The regency's administration is still collecting data of
\nother victims of the calamity and also the total losses caused by
\nthe quake,\" he told The Jakarta Post at his office.<\/p>\n
No officials of the Pandeglang regency's administration were
\navailable for comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The earthquake, which was recorded at 6.0 on the open-ended
\nRichter scale, occurred at 9.14 p.m, he said.<\/p>\n
\"The agency recorded a string of 54 aftershocks for about 12
\nhours after the first strong one,\" said Tarmin.<\/p>\n
He said the string of aftershocks could not be sensed by
\npeople, only by a seismograph.<\/p>\n
A staffer at the National Earthquake Center said there were no
\nmeans capable of predicting when the next strong quake would
\noccur.<\/p>\n
\"Such a device has yet to be invented. But, after the strong
\none, the intensity of the tremors continuously decreases,\" Fauzi,
\na staffer at the center, said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Fauzi said the epicenter of Tuesday's quake was 33 kilometers
\nunder sea level.<\/p>\n
A scientist at the Bandung-based Center for Geological
\nResearch and Development supported Fauzi's opinion.<\/p>\n
\"If the epicenter of the quake was shallow, or close to the
\nsurface of the sea, the damage suffered by people would be more
\nserious,\" said Engkon Kertapati at his office in Bandung, West
\nJava on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Residents of Jakarta were also shocked by the quake.<\/p>\n
Karsul, a maintenance staffer of the BRI building on Jl.
\nSudirman said he was standing in a lift on the 19th floor of the
\nbuilding when the quake struck.<\/p>\n
\"The lift shook heavily, but it still worked. Thank God the
\nlift continued to the building's basement,\" he told the Post
\nshortly after the quake.<\/p>\n
Joko Purnomo, head of the building's maintenance unit, said
\nthe building was constructed to be quake resistant.<\/p>\n
\"The building was built between 1984 and 1985. It has become a
\nmodel for other buildings in Jakarta for its quake-resistant
\nsystem,\" said Joko.<\/p>\n
Fauzi said the tremor felt by residents of Jakarta was
\nmeasured at IV to VI on the scale of Modified Mercally Intensity
\n(MMI) which has a total of nine scales.<\/p>\n
\"The MMI measures the strength of a quake felt by people where
\nthey are standing at the moment the quake occurs,\" said Fauzi.<\/p>\n
If the scale hit VIII to IX, all city's building would have
\nbeen destroyed, he said. (asa\/43)<\/p>",
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