Reuters. A 5.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 268 people and injured hundreds in Indonesia's West Java province on Monday (November 21), with rescuers trying to reach survivors trapped under the rubble amid a series of aftershocks.
The epicentre was near the town of Cianjur in mountainous West Java, about 75 km (45 miles) southeast of the capital, Jakarta. The region is home to over 2.5 million people residents.
Herman Suherman, head of Cianjur's government, said that 162 people had been killed. Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) still placed the death toll at 62 and rescuers were searching for 25 suspected to be trapped under rubbles.
BNPB said more than 2,200 houses had been damaged and more than 5,300 people had been displaced. Electricity was down and disrupting communications efforts, Suherman said, adding that a landslide was blocking evacuations in one area.
Hundreds of victims were being treated in a hospital parking lot, some under an emergency tent. Elsewhere in Cianjur, residents huddled together on mats in open fields or in tents while buildings around them had been reduced almost entirely to rubble.
Officials were still working to determine the full extent of the damage caused by the quake, which struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 km, according to the weather and geophysics agency (BMKG).
