5.6 magnitude earthquake kills at least 62 in Indonesia

() — The number of people killed after the magnitude 5.6 earthquake that struck Indonesia’s West Java province rose to 62, according to Abdul Muhari, director of the Data, Information and Communication Center of the National Disaster Management Agency.

Muhari’s figure corrects that of the 162 deaths that hours before Ridwan Kamil, governor of West Java, erroneously reported.

There are still 25 people missing, Muhari added.

In addition, some 326 people were also injured, in varying degrees of severity, Kamil said at a previous news conference.

Initially, the governor had spoken of more than 700 wounded. “There are still many residents trapped at the incident sites, we assume that the number of injured and dead will continue to increase over time,” he said at the time.

The earthquake struck the Cianjur region of West Java at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The strong earthquake led to the displacement of at least 13,782 people, who will be relocated to 14 refugee camps. At least 2,345 homes were damaged.

Four schools and 52 houses collapsed or suffered heavy damage, according to the local office of the National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB). A mosque and a hospital were also damaged, according to the agency.

The BNPB said there is no risk of a tsunami, Reuters reported.

Herman Suherman, a government official in Cianjur, told the media that some residents were trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. The Metro TV news channel showed what appeared to be hundreds of victims being treated in a hospital parking lot.

Cianjur municipal officials evacuate an injured colleague after the earthquake. (Credit: Antara Regional Agency for Disaster Mitigation (BPBD)/Reuters)

Suherman said an Islamic boarding school was also damaged, while communications were down due to power outages.

Television footage showed residents huddled outside buildings reduced almost entirely to rubble, according to Reuters.

A resident, named only as Muchlis, said he felt “a big tremor” and that the walls and ceiling of his office were damaged.

“I was very shocked. I was worried that there would be another earthquake,” Muchlis told Metro TV.

The BMKG said it warned of the danger of landslides, particularly in case of heavy rain, as 25 aftershocks were recorded in the two hours after the quake.

A Cianjur school building collapsed after the earthquake. (Credit: Iman Firmansyah/Reuters)

Speaking at a press conference, Governor Kamil said the death toll is likely to rise further.

Rescuers are currently unable to reach some of the trapped, he said, adding that the situation remains chaotic with the possibility of more aftershocks.

Government authorities are building tents and shelters for the victims while attending to their basic needs, Kamil added.

Indonesia sits on the “Ring of Fire,” a band around the Pacific Ocean that triggers frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity. One of the most seismically active areas on the planet, it stretches from Japan and Indonesia on one side of the Pacific to California and South America on the other.

In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the island of Sumatra in northern Indonesia triggered a tsunami that devastated 14 countries and killed 226,000 people along the Indian Ocean coast, more than half of them in Indonesia.

Reuters contributed to this report.