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‘Traumatised’: Fresh quake hits Lombok as death toll passes 300

THE Indonesian holiday island of Lombok has been hit by another earthquake after Sunday’s tremor killed hundreds of people.

Lombok hit by second earthquake

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.

Not again: Indonesian search and rescue members react shortly after an aftershock hits the area in Tanjung on Lombok island on Thursday. Picture: Adek Berry/AFP
Not again: Indonesian search and rescue members react shortly after an aftershock hits the area in Tanjung on Lombok island on Thursday. Picture: Adek Berry/AFP
An Indonesian man (L) tries to calm a woman shortly after today’s aftershock hit the area in Tanjung on Lombok. Picture: Adek Berry/AFP
An Indonesian man (L) tries to calm a woman shortly after today’s aftershock hit the area in Tanjung on Lombok. Picture: Adek Berry/AFP

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.

A woman cries next to her children shortly after the aftershock, which caused panic among evacuees sheltering after Sunday’s devastating earthquake. Picture: Adek Berry/AFP
A woman cries next to her children shortly after the aftershock, which caused panic among evacuees sheltering after Sunday’s devastating earthquake. Picture: Adek Berry/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.”

A second earthquake has hit the Indonesian island of Lombok. Picture: Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysics Agency
A second earthquake has hit the Indonesian island of Lombok. Picture: Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysics Agency

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.

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.

A man inspects the ruin of his house destroyed by Sunday’s earthquake in North Lombok. Picture: AP/Firdia Lisnawati
A man inspects the ruin of his house destroyed by Sunday’s earthquake in North Lombok. Picture: AP/Firdia Lisnawati

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.

Originally published as ‘Traumatised’: Fresh quake hits Lombok as death toll passes 300

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