A devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake rocked waters off Indonesia’s coast early Saturday, leaving at least 38 people dead, damaging homes and buildings, and sending frightened residents rushing for safety in a country frequently hit by deadly seismic activity.
Officials reported that more than a dozen people were also injured in the disaster.
A tsunami alert was initially issued, with authorities warning people in coastal areas to head to higher ground. The warning was later canceled after Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said its monitoring had detected no major rise in sea levels that would endanger shoreline communities.
According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake struck the Flores region of Indonesia at 5:58 a.m. local time, at a shallow depth of about 6 miles.
The epicenter was located roughly 42 miles north-northwest of Ende, a city in East Nusa Tenggara province.
Several aftershocks rattled the area in the hours following the main tremor.
Suharyanto, who leads Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, said emergency teams had recovered at least 38 bodies, most of them in the badly affected regencies of Sikka, Manggarai and East Manggarai. Among the victims were 16 people found after a landslide buried parts of Reok village in Manggarai.
At least 13 injured residents were taken to local hospitals for treatment, including two people reported to be in serious condition.
Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians uses a single name, said three helicopters and a rescue vessel were deployed to assist with logistics and support emergency response operations, including possible evacuations if needed, given East Nusa Tenggara’s geography, which consists of numerous islands and presents significant transportation and access challenges.
He said about 2,000 villagers in Nagekeo regency fled their homes to temporary shelters.
East Nusa Tenggara Police Chief Rudi Darmoko said the earthquake caused severe damage and collapsed buildings.
He said power outages in cities and villages have hampered the flow of information and complicated search and rescue efforts.
“We are continuing to collect reports of damage and casualties, but there are communication disruptions,” Darmoko said. He said that landslides in Ende regency triggered by the earthquake also cut off the Trans-Flores highway, a roughly 435-mile paved mountain road spanning Flores Island, from Labuan Bajo to Larantuka.
Footage on local television showed patients at several hospitals being evacuated from buildings as a precaution following the quake.
Hospital staff moved equipment outdoors, including beds, IV stands and oxygen cylinders, and set up temporary treatment areas to adapt to emergency conditions.
The National Disaster Management Agency deployed a helicopter to assist with logistics and support emergency response operations, including possible evacuations if needed, the agency said in a statement.
The air support is considered crucial given East Nusa Tenggara’s geography, which consists of numerous islands and presents significant transportation and access challenges.
It said about 2,000 villagers in Nagekeo regency fled their homes to temporary shelters.
Quake felt on Flores island and other areas
The quake was felt across much of Flores island with initial reports indicating heavy damage.
Yohanna Embu, a resident of Sikka regency, said a number of buildings were damaged by the strong shaking and panicked people ran to 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 Labuan Bajo, a gateway town to eastern Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, one of the country’s best-known attractions.
Damage was also reported in Bima, a city in neighboring West Nusa Tenggara province, and in some parts 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 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.
