Indonesia: The heavily populated main island of Java in Indonesia was shaken by a powerful undersea earthquake on Friday, which caused panic and resulted in the deaths of at least one person, two injuries, and damage to dozens of homes.
The 5.8-magnitude earthquake was centred 84 kilometres (52 miles) southwest of Bambanglipuro, a village in Bantul regency of the special province of Yogyakarta, according to the US Geological Survey. It happened 53 miles down, or 86 kilometres.
According to Abdul Muhari, a 67-year-old resident of Bantul died after falling while attempting to flee in a panic, but at least two other locals escaped unharmed.
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According to Muhari, at least 93 homes in Yogyakarta and its neighbouring provinces of Central Java and East Java were damaged by the earthquake, along with other structures like schools, health centres, houses of worship, and government buildings.
Locals in the Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces were seen on television panicking as houses and other structures swayed briefly. In some places, evacuation orders resulted in large-scale street flooding.
There was no tsunami threat, but Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency issued a warning about potential aftershocks. The agency determined the earthquake's preliminary magnitude to be 6.4. Early earthquake measurements frequently vary.
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Yogyakarta is a historic Javanese cultural hub and the location of several ancient royal dynasties. It is home to the towering Hindu temple complex of Prambanan and the 9th century Borobudur, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Borobudur is a nine-tiered stone structure decorated with hundreds of Buddha statues and relief panels. The province also contains Mount Merapi, the nation's most active volcano.
Despite inflicting more than 130,000 injuries and killing over 6,200 people in Yogyakarta in 2006, the two temples sustained only minor damage.
The more than 270 million-person nation is frequently affected by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis as a result of its location on the "Ring of Fire," a chain of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
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In 2004, a tsunami caused by a devastating earthquake in the Indian Ocean killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen different countries, the majority of them in Indonesia's Aceh province.