Rescuers search for survivors as Indonesian quake death toll rises

MAUMERE: Jakarta Rescuers combed through debris for survivors on Saturday after a powerful earthquake struck off Indonesia's eastern Flores island, killing at least 47 people, according to disaster officials. The national disaster management agency (BNPB) raised the death toll from 40 late on Saturday, and rescue official Fathur Rahman said 50 people were injured in the 7.7-magnitude quake. Suharyanto, who leads the BNPB, said earlier that people were trapped in several buildings. "These will be the initial targets of the disaster response teams," said Suharyanto.

Nearly 160 houses, dozens of educational and health facilities and other public buildings were damaged when the earthquake struck the popular tourist island in Indonesia's east, the BNPB reported. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said preparations were underway to bring aid to some 2,000 people in temporary shelters. The government sent 50,000 aid packages weighing a total of 275 tonnes to the area, and European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen offered help from the bloc's Copernicus Earth observation satellites. "Europe stands ready to deploy Copernicus, our eyes in the sky, to support search and rescue efforts. Indonesia, we stand with you," she wrote on X.

"I have never felt an earthquake this big," Yulian Juita Ekalia, who lives in Ruteng city more than 100 kilometres west of the epicentre, said hours after the tremor. "It felt like we were on a trampoline; it was really scary," said the 37-year-old university lecturer, who was jolted awake at around 5:30 am. "As I rushed to get outside, everything in the house fell down: the television, my son's trophies, the dish racks, suitcases on top of the wardrobes. When I got outside, my son and neighbours were already there, screaming in fear."

Rescue official Fathur said that the focus was on locating victims who may be buried under rubble, but rescue efforts have been complicated by landslides cutting off roads. Many Flores inhabitants were left without electricity and telecommunications. Residents in Nagekeo, an area close to the epicentre, raced for higher ground as the sea retreated early on Saturday — a possible sign of an approaching tsunami, journalists witnessed.

While a tsunami warning was lifted, authorities urged people not to return to damaged buildings for fear that aftershocks may bring them down. Hundreds remained outside hours later as dozens of aftershocks shook the island, the strongest measured at a magnitude of 6.1. Waves of up to 1.6 metres were reported in some coastal regions of Flores, according to Indonesia's BMKG geological agency.

The epicentre of the shallow quake was located just off the north coast of the island, US and Indonesian authorities said. The affected areas have few, if any, high-rise buildings. A second, deep onland quake was measured at a magnitude of 6.9 near Pematangsiantar on Sumatra island — thousands of kilometres away — some 12 hours after the Flores tremor. There were no initial reports of damage or casualties, and no tsunami alert was issued.

Indonesia experiences frequent earthquakes due to its location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin. Flores was struck by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in 1992, which triggered a tsunami and resulted in around 2,500 deaths. A devastating 9.1-magnitude tremor in 2004 struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, about 170,000 of them in Indonesia, in one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. — AFP