5.8-magnitude Earthquake Jolts Indonesia's Java Island

A villager looks at damaged houses following a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 162 people in West Java in November. — AFP/File
A villager looks at damaged houses following a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 162 people in West Java in November. — AFP/File
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5.8-magnitude Earthquake Jolts Indonesia's Java Island

A villager looks at damaged houses following a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 162 people in West Java in November. — AFP/File
A villager looks at damaged houses following a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 162 people in West Java in November. — AFP/File

A 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia's main island of Java on Thursday with no immediate reports of damage, less than a month after another quake in the same province killed more than 300 people.

The quake struck at 07:50 am local time (0050 GMT) around 15 kilometers from the town of Cianjur, epicenter of November's devastating tremor, the United States Geological Survey said.

It said there was a low likelihood of casualties or damage following the quake, which struck at a depth of 123 kilometers (76 miles), AFP reported.

No damage was immediately reported in Cianjur or Sukabumi, the city nearest the epicenter, local disaster mitigation agency officials said Thursday.

But schools were temporarily evacuated in Sukabumi, according to local TV.

"The epicenter of the earthquake is in Sukabumi, so it was only lightly felt in Cianjur. No reports of damage to houses or casualties," said Wawan Setawan, a disaster agency official in Cianjur told AFP.

"We have yet to receive reports of damage caused by the earthquake", Imran Wardhani, an official in Sukabumi, said soon after the tremor.

Last month, a shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit Cianjur, triggering landslides and collapsing buildings, killing at least 334 people, injuring thousands and leaving tens of thousands more homeless.

Save the Children warned this week that evacuees faced a "ticking time bomb" of disease and infection due to poor living conditions. Thousands of cases of respiratory infections and hundreds of cases of diarrhea have been reported.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo is visiting the area on Thursday to distribute aid to affected residents.

The tremor that struck Cinajur on November 21 was the deadliest in the archipelago nation since a 2018 quake and resulting tsunami killed more than 4,000 people on the island of Sulawesi.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide.



Japan, China Trade Barbs over Fighter Jet Maneuvers

China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP
China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP
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Japan, China Trade Barbs over Fighter Jet Maneuvers

China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP
China and Japan traded barbs after a Chinese J-15 fighter jet followed a Japanese patrol plane at the weekend. Handout / Japan's Ministry of Defense/AFP

Beijing condemned on Thursday what it called "dangerous behavior" by a Japanese military plane over the Pacific after Tokyo said Chinese fighter jets flew unusually close to its aircraft at the weekend.

The Japanese government had complained to China over the incident, in which no Japanese military personnel were reported injured.

A Chinese J-15 fighter jet from the Shandong aircraft carrier followed a Japanese P-3C patrol plane for 40 minutes on Saturday, according to the Japanese defense ministry.

Two J-15 jets then did the same for 80 minutes on Sunday.

"During these long periods, the jets flew unusually close to the P-3C, and they flew within 45 meters" of the patrol plane on both days, an official from the Japanese ministry told AFP.

Also on Sunday, Chinese jets cut across airspace around 900 meters (3,000 feet) ahead of a P-3C Japanese patrol plane at the same altitude -- a distance a P-3C can reach within a few seconds at cruising speed, Tokyo said.

"We do not believe that this approach was made by mistake," the Japanese military's chief of staff Yoshihide Yoshida told reporters on Thursday.

"Given it happened for 40 minutes and 80 minutes, for two days in a row, our understanding is that it was done on purpose," he said.

Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian hit back at the Japanese description of the events.

"The root cause of the risk to maritime and air security was the close reconnaissance of China's normal military activities by a Japanese warplane," he said.

"The Chinese side urges the Japanese side to stop this kind of dangerous behavior."

'Abnormal approaches'

The incident followed the sighting in recent days of two Chinese aircraft carriers sailing in the Pacific simultaneously for the first time.

Japan said this week the aircraft carriers' activity -- described by China as "routine training" -- showed the expanding geographic scope of Beijing's military.

Yoshida said on Thursday loosening Japan's surveillance, information-gathering or countermeasures against intrusion "would encourage attempts to change the status quo by force".

Tokyo's top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi earlier told reporters in regard to the fighter jet incident that "such abnormal approaches can lead to an accidental collision, so we have expressed serious concerns" to the Chinese side.

US ambassador to Japan George Glass said on social media platform X that the maneuvers by a Chinese fighter "put Japanese crewmembers' lives in peril".

"Whether it's harassing Philippine ships, attacking Vietnamese fishermen, or firing flares at Australian aircraft, Beijing knows only reckless aggression. Not so much a charm offensive as offensive harm," Glass said.

Similar incidents were last reported in May and June 2014, when Chinese Su-27 fighter jets flew within 30 meters (100 feet) of Japanese military planes in the East China Sea.

Japan summoned the Chinese ambassador at the time, while the two sides traded accusations of blame.

Daisuke Kawai, director of the University of Tokyo's economic security and policy innovation program, told AFP this week that the timing of the aircraft carrier movements could be linked to US-China economic tensions.

"Beijing calculated that the United States would be less willing or able to respond militarily at this precise moment, seeing it as an opportune time to demonstrate its expanding military capabilities," he said.