The death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake in Indonesia’s most populous province has risen to 310, officials said on Friday, after days of rescue efforts were hampered by heavy rain, roads were blocked and roads were blocked. landslides, broken communication lines and strong aftershocks. 24 people are still missing as search efforts continue.
Officials gave the death toll from the 5.6-magnitude shallow quake, which shook a mountainous area and caused damage across a large area of different villages separated by rocks. rough hilly road, was 272 people on Thursday afternoon. Some local officials said earlier numbers released by the central government were undercount, in part because some families buried their dead shortly after the quake, before rescuers arrived. their village. Officials said they are working to cross-check the data by collecting death certificates or recording the identities of victims from the cemeteries of all affected villages.
The earthquake in Cianjur, an agricultural region in West Java province known for rice, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and caused massive landslides that swallowed whole communities. About a third of those killed were children trapped in dilapidated houses or schools, in a rural area with Loose construction standardsofficials said in the days after the quake.
The number of dead and injured, as well as tens of thousands of people forced from their homes, is high even for Indonesia, where earthquakes and other natural disasters occur almost daily. Officials said steep terrain and unstable soil contributed to the extent of the damage.
Some villages remained inaccessible by road more than two days after the quake, the quake was particularly destructive because the epicenter was only about 6 miles deep, meaning the seismic waves lost less strength as the quake hit. transmitted to the earth’s surface. Strong tremors were also felt in the capital, Jakarta, 60 miles away.
Indonesia is an archipelago of about 270 million people, located at the meeting point of several tectonic plates and along a volcanic arc and fault line. The devastation from strong earthquakes has been exacerbated by landslides caused by deforestation, small-scale mining and urban development.
