‘On Friday, a magnitude-6.4 earthquake hit near Indonesia’s Java island’, said the United States Geological Survey.
The tremor was felt in the capital Jakarta and forced residents of another city to flee their homes. Notably, the quake had a depth of around eight kilometres (five miles), and struck off Java island’s northern coast near Bawean island at about 3:52 pm local time (0852 GMT).
There were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued by local authorities. In East Java Province, the quake was felt more strongly including in the major city of Surabaya.
Yulianus Andre, an AFP journalist in the city said, ‘I was at home when the earthquake struck. The jolt made us unsteady. The water in the sewer was swaying’.
‘My family and I rushed out of home and our neighbours did too. The jolt lasted more than a minute when we were outside’, added Yullianus.
Indonesia 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.
However, In January 2021, a magnitude-6.2 quake shook Sulawesi island wherein more than 100 people were killed and thousands were left homeless.
Similarly in 2018, a magnitude-7.5 quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi killed more than 2,200 people. Also in 2004, a magnitude-9.1 quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and more than 170,000 people were killed in Indonesia.
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