Tremor sends panic across city

Prodita Sabarini and Indah Setiawati , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 09/03/2009 11:27 AM | Headlines

The power of nature: A building in the town of Tasikmalaya, West Java was severely damaged by an earthquake Wednesday. The powerful earthquake rattled a large swathe of southern Indonesia causing extensive damage to houses and buildings. AP/Faisal Amirudin

Pregnant Enira Arvanda was apprehensive when the metal structure of her 10th floor office in Sudirman City Lofts started creaking as the building swayed from the tremor Wednesday, but her apprehension turned to panic upon hearing a cracking sound in the low ceiling.

Jakartans felt the jolt of a 7.3-magnitude earthquake at 2:55 p.m. Wednesday. The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported that its epicenter was 143 kilometers southwest of Tasikmalaya, West Java and originated 30 kilometers below the seabed.

Office workers in tall buildings in Jakarta rushed outside anticipating the possible collapse of buildings. Telephone connections went down for several minutes. Jakarta traffic was gridlocked as most people left work immediately after the quake. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were swamped with status updates and tweets about the earthquake.

Dozens of Jakartans were rushed to hospitals suffering from shock. Vivanews.com reported that a businessman died of a heart attack during the evacuation of the Patra Jasa building on Jl. Gatot Subroto.

Enira, who is nine months' pregnant, said after the crack, she did not stop to think, but automatically headed toward the emergency stairs, barefoot. "At the stairs, I felt another jolt. People were running down the stairs, calling out prayers," she said. In their haste, people shoved her aside.

"I kept walking calmly, telling people I was pregnant," she said.

An employee at Microsoft Indonesia, Laurentia Lila, said the earthquake fractured the windows of her office on the 18th floor of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) building, Central Jakarta. She said she panicked when the earthquake struck because her office was in a high-rise building,

"By the time the siren sounded, people were scrambling for the doors, jostling each other on the stairs. I immediately took off my shoes to go faster," she said, adding that she was exhausted after running down from the 18th floor.

Office worker Amanda Supriadi said that Wednesday was the third evacuation for her in the last two months, having had to evacuate her office in the Danamon building in Mega Kuningan due to the July hotel bombings and once again because of a bomb threat.

"And now, I have had to evacuate this office because of the earthquake," she said. Amanda only started working at the BNI 46 building on Sudirman this week. "My office is on the 18th floor, so we took the stairs down. We met people from other offices on the 17th and 16th floors, but we all reminded one another not to panic, so we walked calmly," she said.

An officer at the Traffic Management Center, First Brig. Andi, said the main thoroughfares were jammed after the earthquake. "A lot of people all decided to go home at the same time because of the quake," he said. Jl. Jend. Sudirman, Jl. MH Thamrin, and Jl. Gatot Subroto experienced the worst gridlock, he said. Animals at Taman Safari Indonesia animal park in Cisarua, Bogor, were restless minutes before the earthquake, park spokesperson Yulius H. Suprihardo said. The Sumatran elephant, that Yulius said could detect natural disasters, looked jittery and afraid 10 minutes before the quake. Llamas at the park were also agitated, running around in panic just before the tremor.