CNN –
At least 46 people have died after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia’s West Java province on Monday, according to the country’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB).
About 700 others were injured, according to Major General Suharyanto, head of the BNPB.
The earthquake struck the Cianjur region in West Java province at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Four schools and 52 houses collapsed or were heavily damaged, according to BNPB’s local office in Cianjur region. A mosque and a hospital were also damaged, the office said.
The BNPB said there is no tsunami risk, Reuters reported.
Herman Suherman, a government official in Cianjur, told media that some residents were trapped in the rubble of the collapsed buildings. News channel Metro TV showed what appeared to be hundreds of victims being treated in a hospital parking lot.
He said an Islamic boarding school was also damaged, while communications had been disrupted due to power cuts.
According to Reuters, television footage showed residents huddled outside buildings almost completely reduced to rubble.
One, named only as Muchlis, said he felt “a big shake” and that the walls and ceiling of his office were damaged.
“I was very surprised. I was worried that there would be another earthquake,” Muchlis told Metro TV.
The BMKG warned of the danger of landslides, especially during heavy rains, as 25 aftershocks were recorded in the two hours after the earthquake.
Indonesia is located on the “Ring of Fire”, a band around the Pacific Ocean that triggers frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity. One of the most seismically active areas on the planet, it stretches from Japan and Indonesia on one side of the Pacific to California and South America on the other.
In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake on the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that affected 14 countries and killed 226,000 people along the Indian Ocean coast, more than half of them in Indonesia.