A large (Mw = 7.0) earthquake struck offshore Java in Indonesia today at 07:55 UTC (2:55 am local time). USGS has a location map (below) and earthquake parameters, a shake map, etc here.

AP is reporting that a large landslide was triggered in Rawa Hideung village, Cianjur district in Java:

“Antara reported that 12 families, or about 30 people, were trapped in houses buried by the landslide in Rawa Hideung village, Cianjur district. Six bodies had been recovered and the fate of many others was unknown, a resident, Agus Sobandi, was quoted as saying.”

Java appears as one of the most serious hotspots on the global landslide dataset that I collate, so the occurrence of slides from this earthquake is not surprising. There may well have been many more landslides.

Update: The Indonesian National Disaster Agency BNPB has a report on its web page about the earthquake here. This is in Indonesian, but Google can translate this to English. The key element from a landslide perspective is (unedited translation): Cianjur: “Interim report, there were 10 people died in landslides buried, with details of the 9th district residents and 1 Cibinong Sukanegara citizens. A total of 11 houses in the district Jembrong severely damaged and landslides buried Cikado district offices to the ground.”