[ad_1]
MALANG, Indonesia — A strong earthquake killed at least six people and damaged buildings on Indonesia’s main island, Java, on Saturday and shook the tourist hot spot of Bali, officials said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, of magnitude-6.0, had struck off the island’s southern coast at 2 p.m. local time. It was centered in waters south of the Malang District in East Java Province and had a depth of 51 miles.
Falling rocks killed a woman on a motorcycle and badly injured her husband in East Java’s Lumajang district, said Raditya Jati, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.
He said dozens of homes had been damaged across the district, and rescuers had retrieved two bodies from the rubble of collapsed homes in the district’s Kali Uling village. Two people were also confirmed to have been killed in an area bordering Lumajang and Malang districts, and one person was found dead under rubble in Malang.
Television reports showed people running in panic from malls and buildings in several cities in East Java Province.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency released videos and photos of damaged houses and buildings, including a ceiling at a hospital in Blitar, a city neighboring Malang. The authorities were still collecting information about the extent of casualties and damage in the affected areas.
The quake was the second deadly disaster to hit Indonesia this past week. Last Sunday, a downpour resulting from Tropical Cyclone Seroja killed at least 165 people and damaged thousands of houses. Some were buried in either mudslides or solidified lava from a volcanic eruption in November, while others were swept away by flash flooding.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 270 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In January, a magnitude-6.2 earthquake killed at least 105 people and injured nearly 6,500, while more than 92,000 were displaced, after striking Mamuju and Majene districts in West Sulawesi Province.
[ad_2]
Source link
