BMKG Clarifies Issue of 5-Magnitude Quake before Tsunami
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24 December 2018 21:05 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Two European earthquake monitoring institutions recorded 5 magnitude earthquake in the waters of Sunda Strait at 20:55 Western Indonesia Time (WIB) before the tsunami hit the area on Saturday, December 22. However, the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) did not consider the shock an earthquake.
The France-based European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) reported in its website https://m.emsc.eu/earthquake/earthquake.php?evid=734380 that 5 magnitude quake struck Sunda Strait waters. The epicenter located at 106 kilometers west of Tangerang or 93 kilometers southeast Bandarlampung or 51 kilometers west of Pandeglang.
The shock precisely occurred at 6.16 degrees south latitude and 105.67 degrees east longitude at a depth of five kilometers.
A similar cover released in a website https://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/eqinfo/list.php, noted a 5.1 magnitude quake occurred at coordinates 105.44 east degrees longitude and 6.15 degrees south latitude. The depth was reported at 0 kilometers.
Read: BMKG Ensures Sunda Strait Tsunami Relates to Mount Anak Krakatau
The site was managed by Germany-based earthquake monitoring agency that was a member of EMSC.
The Head of Earthquake and Tsunami Section at the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), Rahmat Triyono, stressed that the record was not an earthquake data but avalanches of Mount Anak Krakatau (Child of Mount Krakatoa).
“If a 5 magnitude quake occurs, how come there is none who feels it,” said Rahmat via a phone call today, December 24.
BMKG underlined that it recorded a tremor from Sunda Strait. “Ïts epicenter at the foot of the mountain slope of Mount Anak Krakatau,” he explained. The shock was occurred due to avalanches of mountain materials to the sea that led to the tsunami.
According to Rahmat, the tremor was noticed in the sensor system in Banten and Lampung, and that was equal to a 3.4 magnitude earthquake. BMKG was capable to record tremor caused by a landslide as previously occurred in Pasuruan, East Java. “We can even know the nuclear test in North Korea, while in fact, it is not the quake,” he said.
ANWAR SISWADI (CONTRIBUTOR)
