6.1 magnitude earthquake hits Java, Indonesia

A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck the southern part of Indonesia’s main island of Java on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or significant property damage.

The US Geological Survey said the quake struck 102 kilometers (63 mi) south of the city of Banjar at a depth of 68.3 kilometers (42.4 mi). There was no warning of tsunami.

Tall buildings in the capital Jakarta shook for about a minute and two-storey houses shook strongly in the West Java provincial capital Bandung and Jakarta’s satellite cities Depok, Tangerang, Bogor and Bekasi. The quake was also felt in West Java, Yogyakarta and other cities in East Java province, according to Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency.

The agency has warned of possible aftershocks.

Earthquakes occur frequently across the vast archipelago nation, but they are rarely felt in Jakarta.

Indonesia, a seismically active archipelago of 270 million people, is at risk from seismic upheaval due to its location on major geological faults known as the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake in 2022 killed at least 602 people in the city of Cianjur, West Java. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since the 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 4,300 people.

In 2004, an extremely powerful earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Aceh province of Indonesia.