Earthquake jolts W. Java, damages several homes
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung
An earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale shook parts of West Java province on Friday morning, leaving several houses damaged and throwing hundreds of thousands of people into a panic, officials said.
The quake occurred at 7:19 a.m. with an epicenter located about 20 kilometers northeast of Bandung around the resort area of Ciater.
Shockwaves from the quake were felt strongly in the subdistrict of Lembang, near the West Java capital of Bandung, and in the area of Tangkuban Perahu.
Residents in Cibodas, Parongpong, Ujungberung and several eastern parts of Bandung also felt the tremor.
The quake prompted people in the affected areas to run out of their swaying houses in a panic. No injuries or casualties were reported.
Surono, a senior official at the Geology Disaster Litigation Directorate in Bandung, said at least three houses in the hamlet of Pasir, Itis village, Lembang, were slightly damaged.
The tremor also left cracks in dozens of other houses in Parongpong village, Lembang, he said.
It also shook other houses and buildings in northern parts of Bandung, including a house belonging to a former official at the local meteorology agency, Bambang Hidayat.
"Little cracks appeared in the walls of my home. The tremor also caused books to fall from a bookshelf. One of the windows in my house was damaged slightly, too," he said.
Several portions of a wall of a crater in Mount Tangkuban Perahu collapsed, said officials.
The Bandung Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), which received reports from local residents, said the earthquake was felt in residential areas along Jl. Cagak Subang and Jl. Ujungberung in Lembang.
Head of the Bandung Meteorology and Geophysics Agency Taufik Rivai said the tremor was a tectonic quake stemming from activities at the Lembang-Baribis fracture.
Surono said the Lembang-Baribis fracture rarely showed any activity, so it was highly unlikely that the quake would be followed by an aftershock.
"Because such activities are rare, we have difficulties gathering data on the sequence of earthquakes from this fracture," Surono said.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelagic country, is prone to seismic upheavals because of its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common.