(RoyalPatriot.com )- The death toll from an Indonesia earthquake that hit its main island of java has reached at least 162. The US Geological Survey said that the magnitude-5.6 earthquake hit the Cianjur region of West Java province in the late afternoon at a depth of 6.2 miles (10km), causing landslides and buildings to collapse, according to The Guardian.
“The majority of those who died were children,” said Ridwan Kamil, the governor of West Java, adding that many such incidents affected several Islamic schools.
Footage showed the collapsed roof of a school building and houses with their walls completely torn down. A power outage at Sayang hospital prevented treatment of those injured by the earthquake, according to Gen Suharyanto, the head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB).
Victims were also filling up a local hospital so that mattresses and blankets had to be moved outside as patients were given oxygen masks and IV drips.
One resident living in Padaluyu, a village in Cianjur, said that the earthquake was sudden.
“I wasn’t prepared,” he said, recalling that he had helped recover an 80-year-old woman’s body and had seen as many as 50 homes damaged and 10 “heavily damaged.”
Rescue efforts continued, despite widespread outages made communication difficult, and damages prevented access to cracked roads. Ima Mafazah, a volunteer with the Indonesian Red Cross said that tremors the initial earthquake struck, leaving many families traumatized and afraid of staying in their homes.
A construction worker being treated at the Cianjur regional hospital told the Associated Press that he had been hit by a wall before he could escape with the rest of his friends.
Hundreds of thousands were impacted by the quake with 242,000 people exposed to “very strong shaking” and up to 978,000 people to “strong shaking,” according to the U.S. Geological Surveys Pager system.
The country’s meteorological agency has warned residents of “aftershocks” and continued tremors, advising that they stay outside. Indonesia is particularly susceptible as it is located around the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” which is reportedly “the most seismically and volcanically active zone in the world.”
