Indonesia earthquake: '46 dead and 700 injured' as 5.6 tremor strikes main island of Java
Dozens of people are feared dead and some 700 injured after an earthquake shook Indonesia's main island of Java on Monday, damaging buildings and sending people scrambling for safety.
Officials say the number of people killed has reached at least 46.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 5.6 quake was centred in the Cianjur region in West Java province at a depth of 10 kilometres. The weather and geophysics agency BMKG said there was no potential for a tsunami.
Cianjur is about 100 kilometres south of Jakarta, and the quake was felt strongly in the area around the capital.
"According to the latest data, 46 people were killed... About 700 people were injured," Herman Suherman, head of the city administration of Cianjur, West Java, told news channel Metro TV.
He added that "at least" 300 people were being treated in one hospital in the city alone. "Most have broken bones after being trapped in the rubble of buildings," Suherman said.
Relatives of the victims were gathering at Sayang hospital, he added, warning that the toll could rise as villagers may still be trapped in the rubble, and many families in villages had not yet been evacuated.
Authorities had earlier reported rescuing a woman and baby trapped in a landslide in Cianjur.
"There have been dozens of people killed. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of houses are damaged," a spokesman for the administration of the West Java town of Cianjur told AFP.
The damaged buildings included an Islamic boarding school, a hospital and other public facilities, National Disaster Mitigation Agency chief Suharyanto said. He also quoted the figure of 46 dead and 700 injured.
Information was still being collected about the extent of casualties and damage, the agency said in a statement.
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