The earthquake took place a hundred kilometers from Djakarta, in the mountainous region of Cianjur, on the island of Java.
by Brice Pedroletti (Bangkok, correspondent in Southeast Asia)
More than 250 people died following the earthquake of a magnitude of 5.6 on the Richter scale which struck the city of Cianjur on Monday, November 21, in the western part of the island of Java, a hundred kilometers south of Djakarta. According to a provisional assessment communicated Tuesday by local authorities, 31 people are still missing and the earthquake would have made some 7,000 displaced.
The shock occurred at 1:21 p.m., 10 kilometers deep, under a village further south, Sukalarang where the damage was however less important than in Cianjur and did not hurt. It was felt in the Indonesian capital, but no victim or any significant damage was found there. The Cianjur hilly region has regularly been affected by earthquakes in the past: four earthquakes of more than 6.5 on the Richter scale took place within a radius of 250 kilometers around Cianjur since 2007.
According to the National Agency for the Management of Indonesian disasters, more than 2,500 houses are considered to be destroyed. Four schools are seriously damaged, as well as a mosque. Part of the victims were students of Islamic residential schools whose roof has sold.
part of the blocked roads
cianjure has 170,000 inhabitants. As often in Indonesia, the inhabitants live in houses that spread around an urban center with small buildings. The photos circulating on social networks show a half collapsed supermarket, as well as tangles of beams and bricks covering cars, houses with collapsed walls and ripped roofs. Rescuers were hard at work Tuesday morning to look for victims in the middle of several landslides, which cut roads.
The earthquake has also blocked part of the roads leading to the more remote rural areas, making it difficult to transport excavators and first aid equipment. Tents and covers arrived on Tuesday morning from Djakarta. The Public Electricity Company, PLN, which had to repair pylons and damaged lines, said Tuesday morning that the current had returned to 89 % of Cianjur households, and that the electricity supply of the four main hospitals was now “normal “.
The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, is scheduled to go to the earthquake on Tuesday, according to the Metro TV channel. French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in Indonesia a few days earlier with the heads of state of the 20 largest economies on the planet during the G20 de Bali from November 14 to 16, addressed a “emotional thought on Monday morning For all the victims “, affirming the solidarity of France.
You have 38.18% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.