T

he Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) shrugs off speculation that a massive earthquake measuring up to magnitude 8.7 would rock Jakarta as earlier predicted by the President’s special staff for social aid Andi Arief.

“It has never been written in earthquake history that Jakarta has been the epicenter of an earthquake, making it unlikely that we will experience a massive one,” the head of the BMKG’s earthquake and tsunami center, Suhardjono, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He said that an earthquake would only occur if two plates came together, one riding over the other, something that would unlikely happen in Jakarta as the closest plates to Jakarta were located in the western part of Sunda Strait and southern part of Banten, West Java.

“And they are far from Jakarta, more than 400 kilometers away,” Suhardjono said.

An earthquake could occur in Sunda Strait because it is located at the subduction zone of the Indo-Australia plates and Eurasia found at the western part of Sumatra to Sunda Strait and the southern part of Java, which is far enough from the city and its surrounding area.

“There’s no need for Jakartans to panic about the quake issue, but there’s no harm in staying alert because we do live in an area prone to earthquakes,” Suhardjono said.

Danny Hilman Natawijaya of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said that Jakartans could rest assure that so far, only small scale earthquakes occurred at Sunda Strait.

“But it’s also possible that a huge earthquake can occur at Sunda Strait, we just don’t know when,” he said as quoted by kompas.com.

Commenting on Andi’s prediction, Governor Fauzi Bowo said he did not want to cause panic among Jakartans by affirming the statement.

“I don’t want to give Jakartans reason to worry,” Fauzi said.

Fauzi also said that he had not been briefed by any experts about the possibility of major quakes hitting Jakarta.

“I will summons experts to give their response [to the prediction],” he said.

In a discussion on disaster mitigation efforts on Sunday, Andi Arief said that a 8.7-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter at Sunda Strait could occur.

Andi also said that the government was now prioritizing a mitigation program in Jakarta in order to secure the city’s infrastructure.

He said that beside Jakarta, Bandung, several other cities in Sumatra were also prone to massive earthquakes.

Suhardjono said that the comment made by Andi Arief was also probably aimed at preparing precautionary measures building contractors should take.

“In constructing a building, constructors have to also include a calculation on how bad the condition could get if a massive earthquake occurs,” he said.

On Tuesday, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake rattled Blitar, East Java. The center of the quake was 25 kilometers deep below the Indian Ocean seabed, 170 kilometers off southeast Blitar. No casualties were reported in the earthquake.