JAKARTA, Indonesia — A strong magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off Indonesia’s coast early Saturday, bringing down buildings and homes, killing at least five people and sending residents fleeing in a region long vulnerable to destructive quakes.
Officials initially issued a tsunami warning and told people in coastal areas to head for higher ground. The alert was later lifted after Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said monitoring detected no significant sea-level changes that would endanger coastal communities.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit the Flores region at 5:58 a.m. local time at a depth of 10 kilometers. Its epicenter was located 68 kilometers, or 42 miles, north-northwest of Ende, a city in East Nusa Tenggara province. Several aftershocks followed the initial tremor.
East Nusa Tenggara police chief Rudi Darmoko said early reports showed two people died in Sikka Regency and three others in Manggarai Regency, where the quake caused serious damage and building collapses. He said power cuts across cities and villages were slowing the flow of information and making search-and-rescue operations more difficult.
“We are continuing to collect reports of damages and casualties, but there are communication disruptions,” Darmoko said.
Local television footage showed hospital patients being evacuated from several buildings as a precaution after the quake. Medical workers carried beds, IV stands, oxygen cylinders and other equipment outside, creating temporary treatment areas to keep emergency care going.
Quake felt on Flores island and other areas
The shaking was felt across much of Flores island, with initial accounts pointing to extensive damage.
Yohanna Embu, a resident of Sikka Regency, said several buildings were damaged by the powerful tremor as frightened residents rushed toward higher ground.
“Many buildings here were damaged … I saw that the waiting room at the port terminal in Maumere had collapsed,” she said.
Students at St. Peter Major Seminary in Sikka who were attending morning Mass fled in panic when the roof of an assembly hall collapsed, said the Rev. Guidelbertus Tanga, rector of the seminary, which is known locally as Ritapiret Seminary on the predominantly Catholic island of Flores.
“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.”
The quake also reportedly caused panic in Bima, a city in neighboring West Nusa Tenggara province. There were also damages reported in some part of southern Sulawesi island.
Indonesian authorities initially issued a tsunami warning for parts of East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi provinces, and urged residents to stay away from beaches and riverbanks. The agency located the shallow undersea quake near Flores island.
Indonesia prone to earthquakes
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
A powerful earthquake caused a tsunami in 1992 that killed about 2,500 people on Flores, part of a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia.
In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 quake spawned a large localized tsunami that wiped out coastal areas, while liquefaction caused by the shaking turned entire neighborhoods into rivers of sludge in the eastern Indonesian city of Palu, on the Palu-Koro Fault. The disaster killed more than 4,400 people.
In 2010, a 10-foot (three-meter) wave struck the Mentawai Islands, off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, just minutes after a massive offshore earthquake. More than 400 people were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed.
In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.
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Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
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