At least 162 people have been killed after a magnitude-5.6 earthquake struck Indonesia’s main island of Java, triggering landslides and causing buildings to collapse.
The US Geological Survey said the quake, which struck late in the afternoon, was centred in the Cianjur region of West Java province at a depth of 6.2 miles (10km).
Ridwan Kamil, the governor of West Java, said 162 people had been killed, in comments reported by the Kompas and Detik news sites.
Footage from Cianjur showed a school building with a collapsed roof, as well as badly damaged homes where brick walls had been torn down. At a local hospital, overwhelmed by the number of victims, the injured were treated outside, some lying on mattresses or blankets on the ground as they were given oxygen masks and IV drips.
Gen Suharyanto, the head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) , said the nearby Sayang hospital had no power after the quake, hampering efforts to treat victims, and that more medical staff were needed.
Indonesia is especially vulnerable to earthquakes because of its position on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire”, the most seismically and volcanically active zone in the world.
In February, a magnitude-6.2 earthquake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 460 others in West Sumatra province. In January 2021, a quake of similar magnitude killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 6,500 in West Sulawesi province.
A powerful Indian Ocean quake and tsunami in 2004 killed nearly 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia
