5.6 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Indonesia's Capital

A moderately strong earthquake late on Sunday shook parts of Indonesia’s main island of Java and the country’s capital. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The US Geological Survey said that the shallow quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 and that it occurred 37.2 kilometres below the surface. The epicentre was 80 kilometres west-southwest of Pelabuhanratu, a coastal town in West Java province.

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency measured its preliminary magnitude at 5.7, and at a depth of 10 kilometres. Variations in early measurements of quakes are common.

The quake was strongly felt in several cities and villages and caused some to panic, said Daryono, who heads the Earthquake and Tsunami Centre at the agency.

Daryono, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, said there was no danger of a tsunami, but warned of possible aftershocks.

High-rises in Jakarta, the capital, swayed for several seconds. Even two-story homes shook strongly in the West Java provincial capital Bandung, and in Jakarta's satellite cities of Bogor and Bekasi.

Earthquakes occur frequently across the sprawling archipelago nation, but it's uncommon for them to be felt in Jakarta.

Indonesia, a seismically active archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on major geological faults known as the Pacific “Ring of Fire".

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake last year killed at least 602 people in West Java’s Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed more than 4,300 people.

In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

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