An earthquake shook Indonesia’s main Java Island Monday afternoon, killing at least 46, local officials said.
“There are 46 dead people at the Cianjur regional hospital and around 700 injured people. Many were hurt because they were hit by collapsed buildings,” National Disaster Mitigation Agency chief Suharyanto said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said a 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck West Java in Indonesia at 1:21 p.m. local time (1:21 a.m. ET). It was centered in the Cianjur region at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles) — about 47 miles southeast of the capital city of Jakarta.
Hundreds of homes were damaged, including a boarding school, a hospital and several government buildings, Suharyanto told reporters. Several landslides were also reported around the epicenter.
Information was still being collected about the extent of casualties and damage, the disaster agency said in a statement. Injured residents were rushed to the hospital and were also seen receiving medical treatment in parking lots, according to initial photographs from the region.
The quake was felt strongly in the greater Jakarta area. Skyscrapers in the capital swayed and some were evacuated.
The Southeast Asian country of more than 270 million lies on the “Ring of Fire,” a string of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin and is frequently shocked by earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
In February, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 460 in West Sumatra province. In January 2021, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 6,500 in West Sulawesi province.
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