What You Need To Know: West Sulawesi Coastal Area The Most Active Destructive Earthquake Occurs

PHOTO VIA BETWEEN

JAKARTA - Coordinator for Earthquake and Tsunami Mitigation of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), Daryono noted that the coast of West Sulawesi is the most active area for destructive earthquakes.

Daryono revealed that BMKG recorded that since 1915 on the coast of West Sulawesi there have been 9 destructive earthquakes and tsunamis.

First on 23 December 1915, second on 11 April 1967 M6.3 Tsunami, third on 23 February 1969 M6,9 Tsunami, fourth on 6 September 1972 M5.8 Tsunami, fifth on 8 January 1984 M6.7, sixth on 7 November 2020 M5,3, seventh on 14 January 2021 M5,9, eighth on 15 January 2021 M6,2, and ninth on 8 June 2022 (5.9).

The last earthquake was felt very strongly in Mamuju and caused damage to a number of houses and other buildings.

This earthquake was also felt in Majene, Pinrang, Palopo, Palu, Sidrap, Pangkep, Makassar and Masamba. The Mamuju earthquake was also felt far away in Paser and Samarinda, East Kalimantan.

As of this evening, the BMKG monitoring results have only seen two aftershocks, namely a magnitude 2.7 occurring at 14.18 WITA and a magnitude 2.9 occurring at 16.50 WITA.

"This Mamuju earthquake has the characteristics of 'lack of aftershocks' or poor aftershocks, hopefully this phenomenon is a good sign," Daryono said as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, June 8.

The Mamuju earthquake occurred on Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at 12.32.36 WIB with a magnitude of 5.8.

The epicenter of the earthquake was located at coordinates 2.77° South Latitude - 118.56° East Longitude, precisely at sea at a distance of 26 kilometers west of West Tapalang, Mamuju, West Sulawesi with a depth of 10 km.

Taking into account the location of the epicenter and the depth of the hypocenter, the Mamuju earthquake that occurred was a shallow earthquake due to active seafloor fault activity off the coast of Mamuju.

The results of the analysis of the source mechanism show that the Mamuju earthquake has a strike-slip mechanism.