Ambon – Fusilatnews – After an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 rocked the Tanimbar Islands, Maluku, Tuesday (10/1) new land appeared like an island. This phenomenon has sparked anxiety among villagers in Teinema Village, Wuar Labobar District, who live not far from the coast. Head of Teinem Boni Village Kelmaskosu said that the people were worried because they thought the phenomenon of the new island was a sign of impending disaster. The villagers then asked the government to find out and explain to the residents what had happened.
Most of the people are worried about the emergence of natural phenomena, so Boni asked residents to move to a safe place. “We are all currently taking refuge in the mountains,” he said.
“Here it (the plains) emerges from under the sea and here it is formed from mud due to last night’s earthquake,” said Head of Teinem Village Boni Kelmaskosu, Tuesday (10/1/2023).
The emergence of new land after the earthquake which formed a new “island” in Tanimbar is a natural phenomenon created by regional deformation as an example based on satellite map indications, the earthquake happened in Lombok resulted in the phenomenon of rising Lombok Island by 25 centimeters up from the surface
“So this phenomenon can occur after an earthquake which causes regional deformation,” said Herfien who is also a doctoral graduate of Geological Engineering at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Tuesday.(910/1)
Researcher from the Geotechnology Research Center of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Eko Yulianto said the phenomenon was caused by an earthquake fracture after the M 7.5 earthquake in Maluku.
“The formation of new islands occurs in geological terms called faults, where the process of lifting and decreasing land occurs due to the mechanism of the earthquake cycle,” said Eko, as reported by Antara.
lifting and lowering of land by the mechanism of the earthquake cycle, caused by two main phases. Namely inter seismic, which is the initial phase of the earthquake and the co seismic phase is the phase when a tectonic earthquake occurs.
“As happened in the case of the Aceh tsunami earthquake in 2004, an island appeared with a height of up to three meters,” he said.
In the Tanimbar incident, it is possible that the sea was shallow so that when the earthquake struck, the shallow seabed could rise above the sea surface to become a new island.
“To confirm what the process was like before the earthquake occurred, it is possible that the community has observed whether the shallow sea is relatively close to the surface of the water so that with one jolt of an earthquake, then it seems as if a new island appears,” he said.
