On the morning of

January 5 Events Pre-1600 *1477 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is defeated and killed in a conflict with René II, Duke of Lorraine; Duchy of Burgundy, Burgundy subsequently becomes part of France. 1601–1900 *1675 – Battle of Turckh ...

1699 Events January–March * January 5 – A violent Java earthquake damages the city of Batavia on the Indonesian island of Java, killing at least 28 people * January 20 – The Parliament of England (under Tory dominance) limits the size ...

, a violent

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

rocked the then

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

city of

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

on the island of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

. In the contemporary period, the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n capital city

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

. Dutch accounts of the event described the earthquake as being "so heavy and strong" and beyond comparable to other known earthquakes. This event was so large that it was felt throughout west Java, and southern Sumatra.

Tectonic setting

The

n islands of

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

and Lesser Sunda chain lie along a destructive plate boundary where the

Australian Plate The Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate in the eastern and, largely, southern hemispheres. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, Australia remained connected to India and Antarctica until approximately when India broke ...

meets the

Sunda Plate The Sunda Plate is a minor tectonic plate straddling the Equator in the Eastern Hemisphere on which the majority of Southeast Asia is located. The Sunda Plate was formerly considered a part of the Eurasian Plate, but the GPS measurements have ...

. The plates converge, with the Australian Plate being much denser as it is

oceanic lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust (geology), crust and the portion of the upper mantle (geology), mantle that behaves elastically on time sca ...

subducting Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

beneath the less dense Sunda Plate.

Subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

is responsible for the large

megathrust earthquakes Megathrust earthquakes occur at convergent plate boundaries, where one tectonic plate is forced underneath another. The earthquakes are caused by slip along the thrust fault that forms the contact between the two plates. These interplate earthq ...

along the west coast of Sumatra and south coast of Java. It also plays a significant role in the volcanic activity on the islands. However, intraplate earthquakes can also occur as the Australian Plate deforms when it is subducting; faults within the downgoing slab may result in intermediate-depth events that are also considerably large.

Earthquake

Approximately fifteen minutes of violent shaking was felt but the damage was limited. Other descriptions stated that the earthquake lasted up to 45 minutes. At least 28 people in Batavia were fatally wounded and 49 stone-constructed structures collapsed as a result of the earthquake. Some 21 homes and 29 barns were also obliterated. Almost every home situated in the city suffered some extent of damage. The earthquake uprooted and toppled many trees, blocking waterways and choking river systems. At

Mount Salak Mount Salak ( id, Gunung Salak, su, Gunung Salak) is an eroded volcano in West Java, Indonesia. It has several satellite cones on its southeast flank and the northern foot, along with two additional craters at the summit. Mount Salak has been e ...

, a

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

on the island of Java, the violent tremors triggered

landslides Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environments, ...

and debris masses, blocking rivers and causing floods. The combination of earth and vegetation produced a

debris flow Debris flows are geological phenomena in which water-laden masses of soil and fragmented rock rush down mountainsides, funnel into stream channels, entrain objects in their paths, and form thick, muddy deposits on valley floors. They generally ...

that passed through the

Ci Liwung Ci Liwung (often written as Ciliwung; also as Tjiliwoeng in Dutch, Sundanese: ᮎᮤᮜᮤᮝᮥᮀ) is a 119 km long river in the northwestern region of Java where it flows through two provinces, West Java and the special region of Jakart ...

river and into Batavia, where it entered the

Java Sea The Java Sea ( id, Laut Jawa, jv, Segara Jawa) is an extensive shallow sea on the Sunda Shelf, between the Indonesian islands of Borneo to the north, Java to the south, Sumatra to the west, and Sulawesi to the east. Karimata Strait to its nort ...

. In the port settlement of Bantam, now

Banten Banten ( id, Banten; Sundanese: , romanized ''Banten'') is the westernmost province on the island of Java, Indonesia. Its capital city is Serang. The province borders West Java and the Special Capital Region of Jakarta on the east, the Java Se ...

, the earthquake destroyed a storage warehouse and caused additional damages. In Lampung, Sumatra, the earthquake threw every home off its foundations. More than 100 people were reported killed in Lampung.

Origin

The characteristics of the event is not well determined but most likely a large intermediate-depth earthquake. Other researchers suggest it was a megathrust event with a magnitude of 9.0 along the

Sunda megathrust The Sunda megathrust is a fault (geology), fault that extends approximately 5,500 km (3300 mi) from Burma, Myanmar (Burma) in the north, running along the southwestern side of Sumatra, to the south of Java and Bali before terminating ne ...

. If it were an intraslab earthquake occurring within the downgoing

as it

subducts Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

beneath the

along the

, the estimated

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

() would be 7.4 to 8.0, with an

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

near Batavia, and a focal depth of 100 km. Modelling of the 1699 earthquake scenarios show that an intraslab earthquake of 8.0 provided results consistent with historical documentation of the earthquake. High

Mercalli intensity The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

values at IX corresponds to the pattern of damage described by Dutch officials in Java and Sumatra. As

Banten Province Banten ( id, Banten; Sundanese: , romanized ''Banten'') is the westernmost province on the island of Java, Indonesia. Its capital city is Serang. The province borders West Java and the Special Capital Region of Jakarta on the east, the Java Se ...

is situated on pyroclastic deposits and

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

sediments, seismic waves were likely amplified, resulting in higher degrees of shaking. Simulations of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake only produced shaking assigned at VI to VII which did not match the damage descriptions. Such intensities would only cause moderate damage. Weaker levels of shaking would occur in the mountainous regions, which were insufficient to trigger a landslide. The earthquake was not accompanied by a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...

, further disproving the megathrust theory for an earthquake of such intensity.

Future hazard

In a simulation model, if an earthquake of similar size occurred in modern times, it would cause about 100,000 deaths.

References

{{Earthquakes in Indonesia Earthquakes in Java Earthquakes in Indonesia 1699 in the Dutch Empire 1699 in Asia 1690s earthquakes Batavia, Dutch East Indies Landslides in Indonesia

Tectonic setting

Earthquake

Origin

Future hazard

See also

References