REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LEBAK -- A 5.2-magnitude earthquake rocked the Lebak District area in Banten Province on Thursday at around 6:41 a.m. local time. It did not cause casualties and damages, a Lebak Disaster Mitigation Agency's officer stated.

"We have receive report that the earthquake, measuring 5.2 on Richter scale, did not cause fatalities. None of the local residents got killed or wounded," Head of the Lebak Disaster Mitigation Agency Kaprawi remarked here on Thursday.

Several residents living in the coastal areas of Lebak District, which was close to the earthquake's epicenter, felt the tremors, but their routine activities were not disrupted, Kaprawi noted. The earthquake did not trigger panic among the local people, who have become accustomed to experiencing such a situation, as the southern coastal areas of Lebak District are often hit by earthquakes, he stated.

"We have, so far, not received reports of casualties from the people living in the district's southern coastal areas," Kaprawi revealed, adding that the quake's epicenter was located some 79 kilometers (km) southwest of Lebak District, at a depth of 21 km.

Despite the fact that the earthquake did not potentially trigger a tsunami, he urged the local residents to remain on alert to strengthen disaster risk reduction.

Earthquakes regularly rock various parts of Indonesia due to the fact that the country lies on the Circum-Pacific Belt, also known as the Ring of Fire, where several tectonic plates meet and cause frequent volcanic and seismic activities. According to Head of BMKG Dwikorita Karnawati, Indonesia was hit by 11,577 earthquakes, including several of them that had caused serious casualties throughout 2018, with the number increasing significantly as compared to that in 2017.

The BMKG data showed that 11,577 earthquakes, with varying magnitudes and depths, had hit during 2018, while just 7,172 earthquakes were recorded in 2017. This indicates that Indonesia bore witness to a significant increase in the number of tectonic earthquakes last year, Karnawati stated.

The agency recorded that the earthquakes, with magnitudes of less than five, dominated the occurrences, while those, with magnitudes of over five, were recorded at 297 instances, she remarked.

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