At least 38 people have perished in a powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck off the temblor-prone Indonesian coast early Saturday, collapsing buildings and homes and injuring dozens of residents.
Authorities initially issued a tsunami warning, urging coastal residents to move to higher ground. However, that notice was lifted when quake scientists reported that monitoring showed no sea level changes, NPR reported.
According to NPR:
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit Indonesia’s Flores region with a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles) at 5:58 a.m. local time. Its epicenter was 68 km (42 miles) north-northwest of the city of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province. The initial quake was followed by several aftershocks.
The head of the National Disaster Management Agency, Suharyanto, said rescuers have recovered at least 38 bodies, mostly in the three devastated regencies of Sikka, Manggarai and East Manggarai, including 16 bodies that were pulled from a landslide in the village of Reok in Manggarai. At least 13 people were rushed to nearby hospitals, including two with serious injuries.
Suharyanto, an official in a region where people go by only one name, also said three helicopters and a rescue boat were deployed to assist with logistics and support emergency response operations, including possible evacuations if needed.
East Nusa Tenggara’s geography consists of numerous islands and presents significant transportation and access challenges, authorities said. Some 2,000 villagers in the Nagekeo area fled their homes and went to temporary shelters.
East Nusa Tenggara Police Chief Rudi Darmoko reported that the temblor severely damaged and collapsed buildings, also resulting in power outages that are impacting communications and search and rescue.
“We are continuing to collect reports of damage and casualties, but there are communication disruptions,” Darmoko said.
Students at St. Peter Major Seminary in Sikka narrowly missed fatal consequences while attending morning Mass and had to flee in panic when the roof of an assembly hall collapsed, according to seminary rector Rev. Guidelbertus Tanga.
“Our students and nuns ran out in panic beneath a collapsing roof,” Tanga said. “At least one priest suffered a broken leg after jumping from the second floor of a building during the quake.”
Indonesia is a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands and is subject to quakes and volcanic activity because of its location on what’s commonly called the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In 1992, a powerful undersea earthquake produced a tsunami that killed about 2,500 people on Flores, part of a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia.
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