Quake barely noticed in Jakarta<\/p>\n
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post , Jakarta<\/p>\n
An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale was felt in the
\ncapital on Thursday at 12:50 p.m., but there was no reports of
\ncasualties or damage.<\/p>\n
Employees in high-rise buildings could feel the tremor, but
\nmost Jakartans were unaware of the earthquake, which lasted less
\nthan a minute.<\/p>\n
\"I felt the quake but it wasn't that strong,\" said Astuti
\nWidyawati, an employee of a finance company on the 25th floor of
\nthe Jakarta Stock Exchange building on Jl. Sudirman, Central
\nJakarta.<\/p>\n
The tremor did not panic employees, she said.<\/p>\n
\"It was not like the last quake, when our chairs and desks, as
\nwell as the lights shook,\" she said, referring to an earthquake
\nin January.<\/p>\n
Many people said they did not feel Thursday's tremor.<\/p>\n
\"I didn't feel it at all,\" said Rita, a staff member of an
\nadvertising company located in a two-story building in Mampang,
\nSouth Jakarta.<\/p>\n
The tremor's epicenter was near Panaitan island in the Indian
\nOcean, at a depth of about 75 kilometers beneath the sea and 230
\nkilometers from the capital, according to Muslich of the National
\nEarthquake Center at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).<\/p>\n
The quake was also felt in Bengkulu and southern Sumatra.<\/p>\n
He told The Jakarta Post that the quake was the result of the
\nIndo-Australia plate moving toward and meeting the Eurasia plate,
\na movement that could reach up to seven centimeters.<\/p>\n
\"We could not predict the time of the meeting between the two
\nplates, but southern Sumatra, Java and the Sunda Strait are more
\nlikely to experience earthquakes,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Thursday's quake was the third this year in the city, where
\nmost high-rise buildings are not built to withstand earthquakes.<\/p>\n
The first took place in January, measuring 5.6 on the Richter
\nscale. The second was in March, measuring 3.5, so low that people
\ndid not feel it. The center of both quakes was in the Sunda
\nStrait.<\/p>\n
In October 2000, an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter
\nscale rocked most of the western part of Java, including Greater
\nJakarta.<\/p>",
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