Indonesia Quake Death Toll at 33, Expected to Climb

At least 33 people died and 305 were injured in the earthquake that hit Java on Wednesday, but authorities expected the figure to increase as 40 people were still missing .
Tens of thousands of people rushed from their homes and workplaces, with an estimated 1,300 houses damaged.
Rustam Pakaya, head of the Ministry of Health’s Crisis Center, said that as of 10 p.m. on Wednesday night, they had recorded 11 fatalities in Cianjur, where 12 houses were buried in a landslide, 6 each in Bandung and Banjar, 4 each in Garut and Tasikmalaya, and 1 each in Jakarta and Sukabumi.
“Most of them were housewives and children who were playing PlayStation in what’s now a buried house,’’ a resident of Cianjur, Entang Kurniawan, told TVOne.
About 5,000 people reportedly fled their homes in Cianjur following the quake and landslide.
Officials said little was known yet about some areas believed to be hit hardest by the quake.
“Communications with the coastal areas were completely cut, so we don’t know the conditions there. No reports have come from those areas,” said Priyadi Kardono, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) . “It’s possible the death toll could grow higher.”
The 7.3-magnitude quake’s epicenter was 142 kilometers southwest of Tasikamalaya in West Java and 30 km deep, according to the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG).
“Many houses are flattened to the ground,” said Edi Sapuan in Margamukti village, not far from Tasikmalaya. “Only the wooden houses remain standing. Many villagers are injured, covered in blood.
“We ran as soon as the quake hit. Then five minutes later, my house collapsed,” he added.
Priyadi said the jolt was followed by some aftershocks, one of which registered up to 5.1 in magnitude, with the others less than that.
“We received reports that the jolt was felt in Yogyakarta and as far as Surabaya,” Priyadi said, adding that the quake was caused by the grinding of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates and was a follow-up to the 6.9 magnitude quake that struck West Sumatra on Aug. 16.
Of the 305 injured, Rustam said 267 were from West Java while 38 were in Jakarta, including 18 who were rushed to two South Jakarta hospitals with light injuries.
Ani, a nurse at a Jakarta hospital’ s emergency unit, told the Jakarta Globe that 19 people were admitted to the hospital following the quake suffering from severe traumatic experience.
In Sukabumi, 23 houses were seriously damaged, an official said.
In Cirebon, West Java, three people were taken to a hospital following a stampede at a shopping mall. Five people fainted as hundreds of shoppers jammed the exits trying to get out, said a reporter who was at the scene when the stampede occurred.

Courtesy of thejakartaglobe.com