Indonesia: Java quake kills scores

and injures hundreds

An earthquake on the main Indonesian island of Java has killed scores

of people and injured hundreds, say officials.
The 5.6 magnitude quake struck Cianjur town in West Java, at a
shallow depth of 10km (6 miles), according to US Geological Survey
data.

Scores of people were taken to hospital, with many treated outside.

Rescuers have worked through the night to try to save others thought
to still be trapped under collapsed buildings.

The area where the quake struck is densely populated and prone to
landslides, with poorly built houses reduced to rubble in many areas.

The exact number of people killed so far remains unclear. Indonesia's

National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has said their official
death toll was 103, adding that another figure given by regional
governor Ridwan Kamil - 162 - remains unverified.
BNPB said another 390 people were wounded and that 7,000 people
had taken shelter in various locations in the area.

Mr Kamil has claimed that a total of 13,000 had been displaced by the
disaster, and that more remained "trapped in isolated places". He said
officials were "under the assumption that the number of injured and
deaths will rise with time".
Herman Suherman, the head of administration in Cianjur town, said
most injuries were bone fractures sustained from people being trapped
by debris in buildings.
"The ambulances keep on coming from the villages to the hospital," he
was quoted by AFP news agency as saying earlier in the day. "There
are many families in villages that have not been evacuated."

Many of the injured were treated outside in a hospital car park after
the hospital was left without power for several hours following the
quake, West Java's governor said.
On Monday night, Mr Kamil wrote on Twitter that it could take up to
three days for power to be fully restored to the area. He added that
mobile phone reception remained poor and was causing "a lot of
problems" for officials.
The tremor could also be felt in the capital Jakarta about 100km away,
where people were evacuated from high-rise buildings.
Office workers rushed out of buildings in the civic and business
district during the tremor, which started at 13:21 Western Indonesian
time (WIT) on Monday, the agency said.

"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 told AFP.

An office worker named Ahmad Ridwan told news agency Reuters: "We
are used to this [earthquakes] in Jakarta, but people were so nervous
just now, so we also panicked."
Earthquakes are common in Indonesia, which sits on the "ring of fire"
area of tectonic activity in the Pacific. The country has a history of
devastating earthquakes and tsunamis, with more than 2,000 killed in
a 2018 Sulawesi quake.