Magnitude 6.2 quake causes additional damage and building collapses as search goes on after Sunday’s disaster
An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 has hit Indonesia’s Lombok island, less than a week after a 6.9-magnitude tremor that is believed to have killed hundreds of people.
Thursday’s earthquake struck just after midday, sending panicked residents into the streets. According to information from Indonesia’s meteorology agency the epicentre of the quake was 6km north-west of the island with a depth of 12km.
Indonesia earthquake: rescuers pull people alive out of rubble as aftershocks hit Read more
Residents in the city of Mataram and north Lombok, the areas hardest hit this past week, panicked after Thursday’s strong tremor, pouring out of their homes and evacuation posts. “There was one person who fell from the stairs because the tremor shook the stairs when they tried to get out of the building,” Rangga, one local resident in central Lombok, told CNN Indonesia.
Thursday’s was the biggest of 355 aftershocks since the 6.9-magnitude quake last Sunday which displaced more than 154,000 people, many of whom have been sleeping in makeshift tents by the roadside and in their fields.
A short video posted by Indonesia’s national disaster agency spokesperson, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, on his Twitter account showed that Thursday’s quake has caused additional damage, with some buildings and power lines collapsed.
Play Video 0:25 Latest quake appears to have led to further damage on Indonesia’s Lombok island - video
The full extent of the accumulative damage caused by the Thursday quake was not immediately known.
Indonesia’s disaster and rescue agencies, as well as local officials and the military, which have been coordinating on relief efforts, were still trying to work out the exact death toll caused by Sunday’s powerful earthquake. Rescuers were continuing to retrieve bodies and attempting to get basic supplies such as food and water to the worst-hit areas.
Data from the national army has indicated that as many as 381 have died, while the governor of West Nusa Tenggara put the figure at 226, a number echoed by those from the search and rescue agency. The national disaster agency has reported 259 deaths so far. Indonesia’s top security minister, Wiranto, said on Thursday the death toll from last Sunday’s earthquake on the island of Lombok has climbed to 319.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Indonesian search and rescue personnel in Lombok after a 6.2-magnitude aftershock hit on Thursday. Photograph: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images
The disaster agency spokesperson said it was not uncommon for confusion about exact death tolls to arise during emergency and crisis situations, as has occurred in previous natural disasters such as an earthquake in Padang in 2009 and the eruption of Mount Merapi in 2010.
Straddling an area of high volcanic activity known as the “Ring of Fire”, Indonesia is highly prone to earthquakes.
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This is the third large earthquake to strike Lombok in the past month. On 29 July, a 6.4-magnitude quake killed 17 people and briefly stranded hundreds of trekkers on the slopes of the Mount Rinjani volcano.
A second earthquake has struck the Indonesian island of Lombok.
A STRONG earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 has hit Indonesia’s Lombok island, causing buildings to collapse, according to witnesses and the Southeast Asian nation’s meteorology and geophysics agency.
The strong aftershock today was felt strongly on the island — and in nearby Bali — and followed a 6.9 quake on Sunday that killed more than 300 people, damaged thousands of houses and left tens of thousands of people on Lombok homeless.
Thursday’s 6.2 magnitude quake was shallow, at a depth of 12 kilometres, centred in the northwest of the island, Indonesia’s geological agency said.
It didn’t have the potential to cause a tsunami, because the epicentre of the quake was on land.
A Reuters witness in Lombok said the latest quake sent people into the streets in panic and caused buildings to collapse.
“Evacuees and people ran out of houses when they felt the strong shake of the 6.2 magnitude quake … People are still traumatised. Some buildings were damaged further because of this quake,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB), said on Twitter.
“The quake was felt strongly. There have been 355 aftershocks since Sunday,” national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP.
Evacuees at a shelter in northern Lombok’s Tanjung district ran out onto the road crying and screaming, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Motorcycles parked on the street toppled over and the walls of some nearby buildings collapsed.
A woman wearing a motorbike helmet was seen crying with her two daughters in her arms.
“We were stuck in the traffic while delivering aid, suddenly it felt like our car was hit from behind, it was so strong,” witness Sri Laksmi told AFP.
“People in the street began to panic and got out of their cars, they ran in different directions in the middle of the traffic.”
DEATH TOLL PASSES 300
It was the third big quake to hit Lombok in ten days. Buildings still standing on Lombok have been weakened after Sunday’s 7.0 quake.
Indonesia’s top security minister, Wiranto, says the death toll from last Sunday’s earthquake has climbed to 319. The announcement came after an inter-agency meeting that was convened to resolve wildly different figures for deaths from different agencies.
Another 6.2 Earthquake rattles #lombok. This one centered a bit further west from previous center. 12 km in depth #lombokearthquake no tsunami potential. Light, moderate and heavy shakeup could be felt. BMKG has recorded 355 aftershocks as of this morningpic.twitter.com/cvjbnuDNdR — Bali Promotion Center💅 (@translatorbali) August 9, 2018
The national disaster agency had stood by the official death toll of 131, despite other government agencies, including the military, reporting much higher figures.
The governor of the province that includes Lombok, the military and the national search and rescue agency each issued different death tolls that ranged from 226 to 381.
Another 1447 people have been injured and 165,003 displaced.
As rescuers continue to sift through rubble and reach remote areas of Lombok, losing hope of finding trapped people alive, the toll is expected to climb further.
Most of the people who died in Sunday’s tremor were in Kayangan, on the north side of the island, according to the state-run Antara news agency.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS LOOMS
The Indonesian Red Cross says it’s focusing its Lombok earthquake relief efforts on an estimated 20,000 people in remote areas in the north of the island where aid still has not reached.
A humanitarian crisis is also looming in Lombok, where thousands are in desperate need of clean water, food, medicine and shelter.
Officials said about three-quarters of Lombok’s rural north had been without electricity since Sunday, although power had since been restored in most areas. Aid workers have found some hamlets hard to reach because bridges and roads were torn up by the disaster.
Red Cross spokesman Arifin Hadi says the homeless need clean water and tarpaulins most of all. He says the agency has sent 20 water trucks to five remote areas, including one village of about 1200 households.
He says, “People are always saying they need water and tarps.” He also says they’re continuing to look for people with untreated injuries.
Thousands of tourists have left Lombok since Sunday, fearing further earthquakes, some on extra flights provided by airlines and others on ferries to the neighbouring island of Bali.
DEADLIEST QUAKES IN INDONESIA SINCE 2004
The August 5 earthquake is one of many deadly quakes to strike the vast archipelago since 2004. Here is a recap:
2004
On December 26 a massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the open-ended Richter scale struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, 168,000 in Indonesia alone. It was the world’s third biggest quake since 1900, lifting the ocean floor in some places by 15 metres. The province of Aceh was hardest hit, but the tsunami affected coasts as far away as Africa.
2005
On March 28 a quake measuring 8.6 struck off the coast of Sumatra, killing around 900 people and injuring 6000. It caused widespread destruction on the western island of Nias.
2006
On May 26 a 6.3-magnitude quake rocked a densely populated region of Java near the city of Yogyakarta, killing around 6000 people and injuring 38,000. More than 420,000 were left homeless and 157,000 houses were destroyed.
On July 17, an offshore earthquake measuring 7.7 triggered a tsunami that hit the southwestern coast of Java near the resort of Pangandaran, killing more than 600 people.
2009
On September 2 more than 100 people died when Java was hit by a 7.0-magnitude quake.
On September 30, a 7.6-magnitude quake hit Padang, a major port on the west coast of Sumatra, killing at least 1100 people. Almost a half million others were left homeless and 100,000 homes were destroyed.
2010
On October 25 more than 430 people died when a 7.8-magnitude quake and a tsunami hit the isolated region of Mentawai, off the coast of Sumatra. Several villages were destroyed by waves more than three metres high which extend up to 600 metres inland. Around 15,000 people were left homeless.
2016
On December 6 more than 100 people died after a 6.5-magnitude shallow quake struck Aceh province. Many more were injured, hundreds of houses and mosques were destroyed and 84,000 people were left homeless.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The moment an aftershock hit Lombok
The death toll from a magnitude 6.9 earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok on Sunday has risen to 259 and may go higher still, officials say.
The region has been hit by more than 350 aftershocks, the worst of which struck on Thursday.
The latest tremor had a magnitude of 5.9 or 6.2, according to monitors. It brought down some buildings.
Rescue workers are still digging through rubble and trying to get aid to survivors of the earlier, larger quake.
Officials said of the latest death toll: "This number will continue increasing as rescue teams continue to find victims under collapsed buildings."
Indonesia's chief security minister had earlier said 319 people had died, while local media have reported figures as high as 347.
But national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told the BBC that only 259 deaths had been verified.
The Red Cross says that Sunday's incident was "exceptionally destructive".
Some villages had "completely collapsed", said a Red Cross official in Lombok, Christopher Rassi.
The government says more than 1,400 people were injured and more than 270,000 displaced.
The new tremor on Thursday hit off the north-west coast of Lombok, sending people running into the streets in panic. No tsunami warning was issued.
'I ran as fast as I could'
By Mehulika Sitepu, BBC News, Mataram
More than 350 aftershocks have struck since the quake on Sunday. Usually it feels like the ground is gently swaying. But Thursday's aftershock was different.
In my third-floor hotel room in Mataram, the island's capital, windows smashed, walls cracked and the ceiling started to collapse.
I ran as fast as I could, barefoot, taking nothing with me. The stairs shook as I ran from the building into the street outside, where people were crying. Their fear was clearly visible.
Sturdy buildings such as my hotel, in the north of Lombok and 13km (8 miles) from the epicentre, can withstand such shocks. But the rickety houses where many islanders live cannot. This is why so many people here are now homeless.
Mr Sutopo classified it as an aftershock. A British tourist on nearby Bali told the BBC that it had been felt there, causing people to leave their hotel rooms in the southern resort area of Seminyak.
Emergency workers are gradually starting to reach more remote areas of Lombok as they continue their rescue missions.
But Mr Sutopo said some areas in the north had still not received any aid.
Skip Twitter post by @Sutopo_PN Masih pengungsi yang belum tersentuh bantuan untuk korban gempa di Lombok khususnya di Lombok Utara dan Lombok Barat. Kerusakan bangunan masif di Lombok Utara. Perlu upaya keras untuk segera menyalurkan bantuan. pic.twitter.com/nHheUGMLny — Sutopo Purwo Nugroho (@Sutopo_PN) August 8, 2018 Report
Lombok is a roughly 4,500 sq km (1,700 sq miles) island east of the slightly larger island of Bali.
Most people live in basic housing in small communities. Tens of thousands are now sleeping out in the open or in the ruins of their homes.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption This woman was rescued alive after nearly a week trapped under rubble in Tanjung, North Lombok
"We are still waiting for assessments from some of the more remote areas in the north of the island, but it is already clear that Sunday's earthquake was exceptionally destructive," said Mr Rassi.
"I visited villages yesterday that were completely collapsed," he added, while other teams in East and North Lombok had reported villages where 75% of homes were damaged.
With hospitals and clinics also affected, many of the injured have had to be treated in the open air or in makeshift clinics.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Imam stays as quake hits Bali mosque
Sunday's quake came only days after a slightly smaller one, which killed at least 16 people. There are growing concerns that the important tourism industry will be badly hit at what should be a busy time.
Thousands of tourists visiting Lombok - as well as the nearby Gili Islands and Bali - have been evacuated or have chosen to leave since the weekend.
"We've had light earthquakes in the past, but never anything like this," hotel chain owner Marcel De Rijk told Reuters news agency.
"We've lost a lot of bookings and future guests are in wait-and-see mode. I don't think people will choose Lombok anymore this summer."
The quake struck at 19:46 local time (11:46 GMT) on Sunday at a fairly shallow depth of 31km (19 miles).
Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because it lies on the Ring of Fire - the line of frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions that circles virtually the entire Pacific rim.
More than half of the world's active volcanoes above sea level are part of the ring.
(CNN) Four days after a massive earthquake killed hundreds on the Indonesian island of Lombok, a 5.9 magnitude tremor hit the island, sending frightened residents out into the streets.
Thursday's seismic event follows a 6.9 magnitude quake Sunday that flattened homes and stranded thousands on Lombok's northern coast and the nearby Gili Islands.
North Lombok, more residential and less developed than the island's resort-filled south, was devastated by Sunday's quake. Some villages in the region were completely destroyed, witnesses told CNN.
Aid has been slow to trickle in, due to damage to roads leading to the affected areas and the relatively remote location of the island. Rescue workers have been searching debris for days in the hopes of finding people alive amid the rubble.
Hundreds who survived Sunday's quake are huddled in evacuation centers, where they sleep on plastic mats. Food is scarce, and some of the children are eating crackers dipped in chili sauce.
