Earthquake hits Indonesia.
Today’s earthquake in Indonesia resulted in at least four fatalities as a floating restaurant fell into the water.
As the magnitude 5.5 earthquake shook the eastern region of Papua in the afternoon of Thursday, February 9, the Cirita Cafe in Jayapura collapsed.
Four women were buried beneath the debris after being unable to escape the burning building in time.
Responders discovered them dead in Jayapura Bay.
‘A café collapsed and four people died there. It fell into the sea,’ Asep Khalid, head of the Jayapura disaster mitigation agency, said in a press release.
Putri Kurita, 30, bolted for the exit at another restaurant fearing it would collapse.
‘I was having lunch when things suddenly swayed, the jolt got much stronger,’ she told AFP.
It was stated that other infrastructure, including the Jayapura Mall, had suffered damage.
Numerous locals also suffered injuries.
The main earthquake, which lasted a few seconds, was followed by a number of aftershocks, according to the nation’s geophysics office.
Locals can be seen stretched out outside the hospital, which was reportedly also damaged, in video clips from the scene.
Another scene features a car showroom with smashed glass on the floor and damaged window frames.
The earthquake was reported to have occurred on Thursday at 1:28 pm local time, around one kilometer southwest of Jayapura at a depth of ten kilometers, according to Indonesia’s meteorology, climatology, and geophysics agency.
Only a few days prior, an earthquake in Turkey claimed the lives of at least 15,000 people throughout the nation as well as in neighboring Syria.
Initial reports from agencies on the earthquake’s magnitude varied slightly.
The magnitude was 5.2 according to the nation’s meteorological office.
5.5 was detected by the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC).
According to the US Geological Survey, the magnitude was 5.1.
On Tuesday, an earthquake with a 7.6 magnitude was also felt in Darwin, Australia, under the Banda Sea near Indonesia.
In Indonesia, it hurt one person and caused minor damage to a few nearby structures
On January 16, a 6.2 magnitude underwater earthquake also struck Indonesia.
The archipelago is vulnerable to earthquakes since it is situated on the Pacific Basin’s “Ring of Fire” arc of volcanoes and fault lines.
According to Indonesia’s geophysics service, BMKG, there have been 1,079 earthquakes around Jayapura since 2 January 2023, with 132 of them being felt by locals.