Papua: Papua has been experiencing frequent earthquakes since January. The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said it has recorded 1,079 earthquakes in Jayapur city and surrounding areas since January 2, of which 132 were strong enough to be felt by residents. Another earthquake shook Indonesia’s eastern province of Papua today (9 February), killing four people who were unable to escape when a floating restaurant capsized in the sea. The US Geological Survey said a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck Jayapura near Papua’s north coast and was centered at a depth of 22 kilometers (13 mi). Shallow earthquakes often cause more damage to the Earth’s surface.
“The residents were really panicked. I was in a car, and I felt the wheels of the car lift up,” said Tri Asih, a resident of Jayapura, the capital of Papua. Officials said the quake killed four people inside a floating restaurant, which caused it to topple into the sea.
“The bodies of the four victims have been recovered. The victims were trapped under the rubble of the cafe and covered by the roof,” Abdul Muhri, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, told a news conference.
Rescue divers are searching around the cafeteria for possible casualties. Muhri said that houses, buildings and medical facilities were also damaged. Some patients of the city hospital were moved to its yard.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago home to more than 270 million people, is frequently affected by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it lies on the ‘Ring of Fire’, an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Basin.
On 21 November, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake killed at least 331 people in West Java. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since the 2018 earthquake and tsunami in Sulawesi, which killed some 4,340 people.
In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Aceh province of Indonesia.
(with agency inputs)