Banjarnegara, C Java, (Antaranews Jateng) - The Junior High School (SMPN) 2 of Kalibening, Banjarnegara District, Central Java Province, will hold a national exam despite most buildings being damaged by an earthquake that struck on April 18, 2018.

"We were called on to prepare a location for hold the national examination starting Monday (Apr 23)," Vice Principal of SMPN 2 Kalibening Dodik Bintoro stated here on Thursday.

According to Bintoro, 60 ninth grade students will appear for the national exam to be held in the school using the paper and pencil method.

"Some 20 students will be seated in each room, so that the number of rooms will suffice. Besides this, we have also been urged to motivate students before the exam," he remarked.

In addition to preparing classrooms for the national exam, the school`s employees, along with several volunteers, also cleared the debris, such as tiles and ceilings, which had fallen in the rooms during the earthquake.

The ceiling that was still dangling was also lowered, so as to not endanger the students.

Furthermore, the damaged buildings will soon be repaired after the national examination is held.

"During the national exam, seventh and eighth grade students are not attending school. Hopefully, after the exam, the class will be conducive as before," he remarked.

Amir, one of the eighth graders, was sad, as the school buildings were damaged by the earthquake.

He expects the government to immediately repair the damaged buildings and classrooms, so they can again be used for teaching and learning activities.

Nevertheless, he was grateful as teaching and learning activities had concluded, so there were no victims when the earthquake struck.

Earlier, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) had detected a tectonic earthquake, with a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter Scale, in half of the district`s region on Wednesday (Apr 18), at 1:28 p.m. local time.

The epicenter was located on land at a depth of four kilometers, at a distance of 52 kilometers from North Kebumen.

The BMKG reported that the location of the earthquake`s epicenter on land was the result of fault activity or local fault.

Chief Executive Officer of the Banjarnegara Disaster Mitigation Agency Arief Rahman stated that the earthquake damaged 316 structures in Kalibening District of which 62 were in Kertosari Village, 217 others in Kasinoman Village, and 37 in Plorengan Village.

According to Rahman, the earthquake also damaged several public facilities, such as three mosques, a prayer house, and a school building of SMPN 2 Kalibening.

"Based on temporary data, two people died due to the earthquake. They are identified as Asep, 13, and Kasri, 80, who were from Kasinoman Village," he added.