According to the US Geological Survey, an offshore earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck close to Indonesia’s Java island on Friday, causing inhabitants of another city to evacuate their houses and shaking the nation’s capital, Jakarta.
The USGS said that the earthquake, which occurred at around 3:52 p.m. local time (0852 GMT) near Bawean island off the northern coast of Java island, had a depth of about eight kilometers (five miles).
No damage or casualties were reported right away, and no local authorities issued a tsunami warning.
“I was at home when the earthquake struck. The jolt made us unsteady. The water in the sewer (outside) was swaying,” said Yulianus Andre, an AFP journalist in the city.
“My family and I rushed out of home and our neighbours did too. The jolt lasted more than a minute when we were outside.”
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
A magnitude-6.2 quake that shook Sulawesi island in January 2021 killed more than 100 people and left thousands homeless.
In 2018, a magnitude-7.5 quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi killed more than 2,200 people.
And in 2004, a magnitude-9.1 quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.
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(Source: HT)
