Antara, Nabire – The Siriwini Bawah Bridge, which connects Nabire City with Nabire Port in Central Papua, collapsed following a magnitude 6.5 earthquake that struck the region early Friday morning.
In addition, several buildings were reported damaged, while internet networks in Nabire Regency also experienced disruptions.
Head of the Central Papua Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), Otis Money, said his team is still collecting data on public facilities and residential houses damaged by the quake.
Some of the affected facilities include the Christ the King Catholic Church in Malompo, where walls cracked and the ceiling collapsed.
"Many houses around Nabire City were cracked. Household items also fell and were destroyed due to this morning's quake. As of now, no fatalities have been reported," he said, as quoted by Antara.
The earthquake also disrupted communication networks in Nabire. TelkomGroup services in Nabire, Botawa, and Enarotali experienced outages. "Communication networks remain unstable, and this morning there was even a complete blackout," he added.
Central Papua BPBD continues to coordinate with Nabire Regency BPBD to address damage to various facilities.
"We are reporting data on damaged public facilities and houses to regional leaders while awaiting further instructions, considering this area falls under the regency's jurisdiction. In principle, we from the province are ready to provide backup if needed," he said.
It was reported that an earthquake initially measured at magnitude 6.6, later revised to 6.5, struck Nabire early Friday morning at around 03:19 local time.
According to the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the quake's epicenter was located at coordinates 3.47 degrees south latitude and 135.49 degrees east longitude.
The epicenter was about 29 kilometers northwest of Nabire at a depth of 24 kilometers.
Based on BMKG's monitoring as of 07:30 a.m. WIB, Nabire had been hit by 49 aftershocks following the magnitude 6.5 quake. The strongest aftershock measured magnitude 5.1.