JAKARTA, Aug 3, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Four people died and several were injured
after a powerful undersea earthquake rocked Indonesia’s heavily populated
Java island, triggering a brief tsunami warning, the national disaster agency
said Saturday.
The 6.9 magnitude quake on Friday evening sent residents fleeing to higher
ground, while many in the capital Jakarta ran into the streets.
An official from Indonesia’s national disaster agency warned the quake
could generate a tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet), but the alert was
lifted several hours later.
Three people died of heart attacks as the strong quake rocked the region,
agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said on Saturday.
Another person fell to his death while trying to flee his house when the
jolt happened, he said.
Four more people were injured and more than 200 buildings were damaged,
with some 13 houses destroyed, he added.
Over 1,000 people, who had earlier evacuated to temporary shelters,
returned home after authorities convinced them it was safe to do so, Wibowo
said.
“There was thundering noise — it sounded like a plane overhead — and I
was just so scared that I ran,” said 69-year-old Isah, who like many
Indonesians goes by one name, at an evacuation shelter in Pandeglang at the
southwest end of Java.
In December, the area was hit by a volcano-sparked tsunami that killed over
400 people.
Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its
position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide.
Last year, a 7.5-magnitude quake and a subsequent tsunami in Palu on
Sulawesi island killed more than 2,200 people, with another thousand declared
missing.
On December 26, 2004, a devastating 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the
coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 across the
Indian Ocean region, including around 170,000 in Indonesia.