A 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit Cianjur, West Java province, Indonesia, on November 21. It killed 56 people, including 40 children, injured 700 more, damaged hundreds of buildings, and caused landslides.
“56 people have perished and are currently being treated at the Cianjur District Hospital, and over 700 people have been injured," said Suharyanto, the head of the National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure.
Suharyanto said that a lot of people died because the houses in Cianjur were not strong enough to withstand an earthquake. Additionally, the quake occurred during the daytime.
"Let's say that the tragedy happened during the day and that the people living there live in houses that fall down when an earthquake hits," he said.
He hoped that this would serve as a lesson for future generations. He requested that houses in earthquake-prone locations be made earthquake-resistant in the future.
Daryono, the country’s head of meteorology, climatology, and geophysics, said that the earthquake was a shallow one. He explained that the earthquake was devastating in nature.
He said that the earthquake's epicenter, Cianjur, was in a complicated area with a lot of earthquakes. According to him, this renders certain regions more susceptible to earthquakes.
He added that these regions are regularly affected by shallow earthquakes. He explained that several faults have been discovered in the region.
"This tectonic complexity has the potential to cause a shell-low crustal earthquake," he said, adding that “because of these tectonic factors, the area is always prone to earthquakes with shallow crustal or shell-low cluster characteristics.”
Therefore, continued Daryono, the earthquake that occurred today in Cianjur was damaging.
The number of victims and damage caused by earthquakes can increase, the authority said.
Cianjur, the epicenter of the earthquake, is a town and district in the Indonesian province of West Java, and the regency's capital.
The city of Cianjur is about 110 kilometers from Jakarta, the nation's capital (67.49 miles).-Kasmir Nema
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