CIANJUR (INDONESIA), Nov 21:
A powerful earthquake killed at least 162 people and injured hundreds on Indonesia’s main island today. Terrified residents fled into the street, some covered in blood and debris.
Many of the dead were public-school students who had finished their classes for the day and were taking extra lessons at several Islamic schools when they collapsed, West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil said as he announced the new death toll in the remote, rural area.
The toll is expected to rise further, but no estimates were immediately available because of the area’s far-flung, rural population.
Roughly 175,000 people live in the town of Cianjur, part of a mountainous district of the same name with more than 2.5 million people.
Known for their piety, the people of Cianjur live mostly in towns of one- and two-story buildings and in smaller homes in the surrounding countryside.
Kamil said that more than 13,000 people whose homes were heavily damaged were taken to evacuation centres.
Emergency workers treated the injured on stretchers and blankets outside hospitals, on terraces and in parking lots in the Cianjur region, about three hours drive from the capital, Java.
The injured, including children, were given oxygen masks and IV lines. Some were resuscitated.
“I fainted. It was very strong,” said Hasan, a construction worker who, like many Indonesians, uses one name.
“I saw my friends running to escape from the building. But it was too late to get out and I was hit by the wall.”
Residents, some crying and holding their children, fled damaged homes after the magnitude 5.6 quake shook the region in West Java province in the late afternoon, at a depth of 10 kilometers.
It also caused panic in the greater Jakarta area, where high-rises swayed and some people evacuated.
In many homes in Cianjur, chunks of concrete and roof tiles fell inside bedrooms.
Shopkeeper Dewi Risma was working with customers when the quake hit, and she ran for the exit.
“The vehicles on the road stopped because the quake was very strong,” she said. “I felt it shook three times, but the first one was the strongest one for around 10 seconds. The roof of the shop next to the store I work in had collapsed, and people said two had been hit.”
Twenty-five people were still stuck buried in the debris in Cijedil village, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Abdul Muhari said earlier in the day. (PTI)
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