At least 56 people died and hundreds were injured as a result of an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale that hit West Java, Indonesia’s most populous province with nearly 50 million people, on Monday.
The number was announced by the country’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), which has been updating the count of victims of the tremor throughout the day.
A spokesman for the government of the Cianjur regency, which is in West Java, said most of the victims died at Sayang hospital in the homonymous Cianjur municipality, where the quake’s epicenter was located.
In an interview with the local press, the administrative chief of Cianjur, Herman Suherman, said that the tremors had left around 700 people injured.
“Victims are still arriving from many areas. Around 700 people were injured,” Suherman told Kompas TV.
According to him, due to the damage caused by the earthquake, many roads and highways in the region were blocked, and some power distribution stations were affected, resulting in power outages in several locations.
After the initial earthquake – which was felt in the country’s capital, Jakarta, 75 km from the epicenter -, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency of Indonesia (BMKG) recorded 25 aftershocks of lesser magnitude in just two hours.
At least 343 homes and an Islamic boarding school were severely damaged by the earthquake. In addition, four government buildings, three schools, a church and several commercial establishments, as well as a hospital, were also damaged in the Cianjur region, according to the latest official report.
Indonesia is located on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of high seismic and volcanic activity where around 7,000 earthquakes, most of them moderate, are recorded each year.
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