Papua's Boven Digoel Regency Hit by 5.0 Magnitude Earthquake

TEMPO.CO, Papua - A tectonic earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 shook the Boven Digoel, Papua on Sunday night, March 28, at 22:34 local time. According to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the source of the earthquake was on land.

"It was a shallow earthquake caused by a local fault," said Bambang Setiyo Prayitno, Head of Earthquake and Tsunami Center at the BMKG.

Through a written statement, he said that the source of the earthquake was at 5.61 south latitude and 141.06 east longitude. "Precisely on land at a distance of 98 kilometers northeast of Tanah Merah City, Boven Digoel Regency, Papua," he said.

This type of earthquake is classified as shallow, with a source depth of 10 kilometers. The results of source mechanism analysis showed that the earthquake has a thrust fault mechanism.

As a result, a number of areas such as Tanah Merah and Oksibil felt tremors with an MMI III earthquake intensity scale, which is like when trucks are passing by in front of a house. 

So far, there has been no report on damages. There have been no aftershocks observed until 21:45 Jakarta time. Based on the results of the earthquake modeling, there was no visible potential for tsunamis.

Read: No Report of Indonesians Affected by 7.2-magnitude Earthquake in Japan

ANWAR SISWADI