On the 21st of November, 2022, an earthquake struck the main island of Indonesia, Java leaving at least forty-six dead and a vast number of people injured according to officials. Lives were not the only thing lost, properties and buildings were completely crushed as well.
The 5.6 magnitude quake hit Cianjur, a town in West Java at a shallow depth of 10km according to the US Geological Survey data. The area where the earthquake struck is heavily populated and prone to landslides with poorly built infrastructure. The tremor could also be felt in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, about 100km away where people in high buildings were quickly evacuated.
Officials have warned citizens of aftershocks, and the death toll may rise as a result if this. Head of administration in the town of Cianjur told a news channel that forty- six people have been killed as a result of the quake and the number of victims kept increasing. He said that the “victims kept coming from many areas and around 700 people were injured.”
The rescue teams have been trying to evacuate people as fast as they can from collapsed buildings, and they managed to save a woman and her baby according to local reports. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency made a statement reporting that a dozen of buildings have been damaged in the Cianjur region, including a hospital and An Islamic boarding school.
The earthquake according to the agency started at 13:21 Western Indonesian Time (WIT) on Monday, the start of the week which is usually a busy day for most workers especially those who work in the office. Office workers in the civic and business district, rushed out of buildings during the tremor, even though they were 100km away from where the actual tremor occurred.
Indonesia; Its Geographic Location and Earthquakes
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country located in the Southeast part of Asia with over 17, 000 islands including Java the island that is currently suffering from the aftermath of a recent earthquake.
The country is known for its constant occurrences of earthquakes and this is due to the geographic position of the country. It lies in the boundary of the three major tectonic plates: Indian-Australian, Eurasian, and Pacific.
Indonesia also sits on the “ring of fire”; an arc of volcanoes and fault lines that arcs the Pacific. Seventy-six out of the hundred and forty-seven volcanoes in the area are active, and this makes the country prone to natural disasters like volcanic eruptions ands earthquakes. Earthquakes can strike across the archipelago at any given time.
Indonesia is one of the countries that has recorded the highest number of natural disasters and it has a history of devasting tsunamis and earthquakes with a death count of more than 2,000 killed in an earthquake that happened in 2018; the Sulawesi quake.
The current earthquake is therefore nothing new to the Indonesians and some of them shared their experiences from the time of its occurrence. An office worker who was identified as Ahmad Ridwan told a news agency that, they were used to this[ earthquakes] in the capital town but people were very nervous this time around and that caused them to panic.
“I was working when the floor under me was shaking. I could feel the tremor clearly. I tried to do nothing to process what it was, but it became even stronger and lasted for some time.”
Lawyer Mayadita Waluyo
