One dies and 17 injured in West Java earthquake
One dies and 17 injured in West Java earthquake
JAKARTA (JP): One person died, 17 others were injured and 160
houses were damaged after a strong quake jolted West Java on
Tuesday, an official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency
said on Wednesday.
"All the victims were residents of the Panimbang district in
the Pandeglang regency of West Java," the Agency spokesman Waan
Tarmin said.
Tarmin did not provide details of the incidents.
The Panimbang district is located some 100 kilometers away
from the quake's epicenter in the Indian Ocean. The epicenter was
located some 200 kilometers southwest of Jakarta.
Tarmin said other neighboring districts heavily jolted by the
quake were Sumyur, Cibaliung and Pagelaran districts. All are
also located in the same regency.
Tarmin said fatalities had yet to be reported in the last
three districts.
"The regency's administration is still collecting data of
other victims of the calamity and also the total losses caused by
the quake," he told The Jakarta Post at his office.
No officials of the Pandeglang regency's administration were
available for comment on Wednesday.
The earthquake, which was recorded at 6.0 on the open-ended
Richter scale, occurred at 9.14 p.m, he said.
"The agency recorded a string of 54 aftershocks for about 12
hours after the first strong one," said Tarmin.
He said the string of aftershocks could not be sensed by
people, only by a seismograph.
A staffer at the National Earthquake Center said there were no
means capable of predicting when the next strong quake would
occur.
"Such a device has yet to be invented. But, after the strong
one, the intensity of the tremors continuously decreases," Fauzi,
a staffer at the center, said on Wednesday.
Fauzi said the epicenter of Tuesday's quake was 33 kilometers
under sea level.
A scientist at the Bandung-based Center for Geological
Research and Development supported Fauzi's opinion.
"If the epicenter of the quake was shallow, or close to the
surface of the sea, the damage suffered by people would be more
serious," said Engkon Kertapati at his office in Bandung, West
Java on Wednesday.
Residents of Jakarta were also shocked by the quake.
Karsul, a maintenance staffer of the BRI building on Jl.
Sudirman said he was standing in a lift on the 19th floor of the
building when the quake struck.
"The lift shook heavily, but it still worked. Thank God the
lift continued to the building's basement," he told the Post
shortly after the quake.
Joko Purnomo, head of the building's maintenance unit, said
the building was constructed to be quake resistant.
"The building was built between 1984 and 1985. It has become a
model for other buildings in Jakarta for its quake-resistant
system," said Joko.
Fauzi said the tremor felt by residents of Jakarta was
measured at IV to VI on the scale of Modified Mercally Intensity
(MMI) which has a total of nine scales.
"The MMI measures the strength of a quake felt by people where
they are standing at the moment the quake occurs," said Fauzi.
If the scale hit VIII to IX, all city's building would have
been destroyed, he said. (asa/43)