CIANJUR, Indonesia — A shallow 5.6-magnitude
earthquake killed at least 162 people, with hundreds injured and others
missing, when it toppled buildings and triggered landslides on Indonesia’s main
island of Java on Monday, officials said.
اضافة اعلان
Doctors treated patients outdoors after the quake,
which was felt as far away as the capital Jakarta, left hospitals in the West
Java town of Cianjur without power for several hours.
Indonesia’s
disaster mitigation agency said 25 people remained trapped under the rubble as
the rescue mission stretched into the night.
The agency increased the death toll from 56 and said
more than 2,000 houses were damaged and more than 5,000 people were taken to
evacuation centers.
West Java governor Ridwan Kamil told a news
conference broadcast on Kompas TV that power had been partially restored by the
evening, without specifying if that meant by generators or connection to a power
grid.
Kamil later raised the death toll to 162.
The afternoon quake was centered in the Cianjur
region and local authorities said as many as 700 had been wounded, warning the
death toll could rise further.
“Because there are still a lot of people trapped on
the scene, we assume injuries and fatalities will increase over time,” Kamil
said as ambulance sirens blared in the background.
The majority of deaths were counted in one hospital,
the head of Cianjur’s local administration Herman Suherman said earlier, with
most of the victims killed in the ruins of collapsed buildings.
He told Indonesian media the town’s Sayang hospital
had no power after the quake, leaving doctors unable to operate on victims
immediately.
More health workers were urgently needed due to the
overwhelming number of patients, he said.
Locals rushed victims to the hospital in pickup
trucks and on motorbikes, according to footage obtained by AFP.
‘Emergency state’
They were placed in front of
the facility as residents spread a tarpaulin on the road for the bodies.
At another facility, Cimacan hospital, green tents
were erected outside for makeshift treatment, according to an AFP reporter at
the scene.
Victims arrived covered in blood, while parents
looked for their children.
Kamil, the governor, said multiple landslides had
cut off road access to some areas and bulldozers were being used to reopen
them.
Shops, a hospital and an Islamic boarding school in
the town were severely damaged, according to Indonesian media.
Broadcasters showed several buildings in Cianjur
with their roofs collapsed and debris lining the streets. The town is situated
in a hilly area where many houses are built with a mixture of mud and concrete.
“The ambulances keep on coming from the villages to
the hospital,” Suherman said.
“There are many families in villages that have not
been evacuated.”
Cianjur police chief Doni Hermawan told Metro TV
authorities had rescued a woman and a baby from a landslide but a third person
they found had died of their injuries.
Indonesia’s meteorological agency said it recorded
62 aftershocks in Cianjur after the quake, with magnitudes ranging from 1.8 to
4.
There were no reports of casualties or major damage
in Jakarta, a three-hour drive away.
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