The earthquake triggered the forced displacement of at least 33 families from their homes, Chief of the Papua Provincial Disaster Mitigation Board (BPBD) Welliam R. Manderi stated on Friday.
"No fatalities were indeed reported (in the quake). However, the Disaster Mitigation Board in Sarmi District is handling the 33 affected families," he remarked.
One of the setbacks in addressing the impact of the earthquake was poor communication networks that affected the dissemination of information, he noted.
"The earthquake in Sarmi was a shallow intensity one caused by the activities of the Mamberamo fault, northeast of Sarmi," he revealed.
The earthquake triggered a sense of panic among the residents living in coastal areas, he stated.
The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported on Thursday that Sarmi District had borne witness to a powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake on early Thursday, though it did not trigger a tsunami.
The agency had earlier reported the earthquake's magnitude at 6.3 on the Richter scale but later updated it to 6.2 on the basis of the outcome of its analysis, Chief of the BMKG Earthquake and Tsunami Center Rahmat Triyono noted in a written statement.
The epicenter of the earthquake, striking at 00.24 WIB (West Indonesia Standard Time), was located 2.23 degrees southern latitude and 138.53 degrees eastern longitude, or 45 kilometers southwest of Sarmi City and at a depth of 11 kilometers, he revealed.
Gauging from the epicenter location and hypocenter depth, the earthquake was a shallow intensity one triggered by local fault activities, he explained.
He pointed out that the people in Sarmi noticed the tremor at III-IV on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale, Sentani at II-II on the MMI, and Wamena at I-II on the MMI.
The result of monitoring indicated that the earthquake had no potential to trigger a tsunami, he stated.
On the basis of the result of monitoring until 00:43 WIB, the agency recorded an aftershock of magnitude 4.9 after the earthquake.
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Translator: Hendrina Dian Kandipi, Suharto
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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