Indonesian Java is on alert after a series of earthquakes

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JAKARTA, Dec. 10 (Jakarta Post/ANN): A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Sukabumi in West Java Thursday morning, sparking panic among barely awake residents in and around the city.

This is the fifth earthquake to hit the province last month. Suddenly the region has to deal with the possibility of more seismic activity in the near future, prompting experts to call for more preventive measures by the government.

Pramono, 28, a resident of Sukabumi’s Sekule district, said the shocks immediately woke him up from his sleep with the shaking lasting for a few seconds.

“The tremor felt very strong,” said the young man, who lives on the second floor of a boarding house, as reported by Kompas.com.

The Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) later stated that the epicenter was located 22 kilometers southeast of the city and 104 kilometers below the surface.

Despite this, the shocks can be felt more than 100 kilometers away in Jakarta’s urban sprawl, with footage circulating on social media showing people scrambling from the capital’s skyscrapers.

Less than a week earlier, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake had struck the Garut district of West Java, with its epicenter located 118 kilometers below the surface. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) reported that one person was injured and four homes were damaged.

More than 300 people died in its aftermath, making it the country’s deadliest earthquake in the past four years.

The tremors also forced tens of thousands of local residents to seek shelter in evacuation tents, with some 53,000 homes left in various stages of destruction.

A day before the Cianjur tragedy, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake centered 24 km below the surface was reported in Pangandaran district and another 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit Garut a week earlier.

More to come While West Java is known to be particularly prone to earthquakes due to the many tectonic fault lines that crisscross the province, Heri Andreas, a geologist at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said the recent series of movements was “out of the ordinary”. . “

“An earthquake with a magnitude of more than five magnitudes usually occurs once or twice a year in West Java. It has happened several times in just one month,” Heri told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The recurrence of tectonic movements in recent weeks indicates that more activity may come in the coming weeks, particularly around the active Cugenang and Lembang faults in West Java, said Junvetner, head of the Center for Disaster Studies at the Agricultural University of Bogor (IPB).

“Although earthquakes are an inevitable natural event, this is a trend that we need to pay special attention to in order to incorporate it into our [disaster] early warning systems,” Univetner told the newspaper on Thursday, noting that disasters are a common occurrence at the end of the year.

Hery suggested that the recent series of earthquakes could be part of a 200-year tectonic cycle that usually culminates in a major earthquake hitting the country’s southern coast in the coming decades, as part of the seismically active Pacific Ring.

There are examples such as the 1994 Banyuwangi earthquake and the 2004 Aceh earthquake. These are pockets of areas that have experienced a release of underground tectonic pressure.

The southern coast of West Java has yet to see that, Herry said, which means the pressure is still building.

Precautions With the threat of more earthquakes looming, Heri called on the government to focus on mitigation measures before disaster strikes rather than disaster response.

“[The government] It should build more evacuation routes and shelters, especially along beaches, as part of structural mitigation efforts.

Meanwhile, the public should receive more training and education to help prepare them for natural disasters. “

Separately, Daryono, Head of Earthquake and Tsunami Mitigation at BMKG, said mitigation measures for structural and non-structural disasters are now more important than ever, especially with the frequency of earthquakes increasing since 2018.

In 2018, there were 11,000 earthquakes [nationwide]while in the former [the yearly average] “It was about 5,000,” he said at a press briefing on Thursday.

“As of December, there have been 11,000 earthquakes this year,” he said. He added that it also coincided with the high number of earthquakes, which caused a large number of casualties and property damage.

“There are usually between eight to 10 cases of damaging earthquakes occurring annually. Since 2018, that number has risen to between 15 and 20,” Daryono said. – Jakarta Post/ANN

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