Indonesia quake kills 8 in Java, jolts Bali; no tsunami risk

A strong earthquake killed at least eight people, injured 23 others and damaged more than 300 buildings on Indonesia’s main island of Java and was also felt on
the tourist hot spot of Bali, officials said Saturday. No tsunami warnings were posted.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.0 quake struck off the island’s southern coast at 2 p.m. It was centered 28 miles south of the town of Sumberpucung, which is in the Malang district of East Java province, at a depth of 51 miles.

Rahmat Triyono, the head of Indonesia’s earthquake and tsunami center, said in a statement that the undersea temblor did not have the potential to cause a tsunami.

Still, he urged people to stay away from slopes of soil or rocks that have the potential for landslides.

This was the second deadly disaster to hit Indonesia in the same week, after a severe downpour April 4, triggered by Tropical Cyclone Seroja, killed at least 174 people while damaging thousands of houses. As of Saturday, 48 people were still missing.

In November, a volcanic eruption left some victims buried in either mudslides or solidified lava, while
others were swept away by flash flooding.

Saturday’s quake caused falling rocks to kill a woman on a motorcycle and badly injure her husband in East Java’s Lumajang district, said Raditya Jati, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.

He said dozens of homes were damaged across the district, and rescuers had retrieved two bodies from under the rubble in the Kali Uling village.

Two people were also confirmed killed in an area bordering the Lumajang and Malang districts, while one person was found dead under rubble in Malang.

Television reports showed people running in panic from malls and buildings in several cities in East Java province.

Indonesia’s search and rescue agency released videos and photos of damaged houses and buildings, including a ceiling at a hospital in Blitar, a city neighboring Malang. Authorities were still collecting information about the full scale of casualties and damage in the affected areas.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 270 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

In January, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed at least 105 people, injured nearly 6,500 and displaced more than 92,000 after striking the Mamuju and Majene districts in West Sulawesi province.