Buildings collapse as strong new quake rocks Indonesia, death toll tops 300

[UN talkz]

At least 22 people have died after a powerful earthquake hit the Indonesian island of Lombok, officials say.

The 7 magnitude quake damaged buildings, triggered power cuts and was felt in neighbouring Bali.

A tsunami warning was issued in its aftermath but it was lifted several hours later.

It comes a week after another quake hit the island killing at least 16 people. Lombok is a popular tourist site for its beaches and hiking trails.

The US Geological Survey said the latest quake, off the north coast of Lombok, struck 10km (6.21 miles) underground.

More than 50 people were injured.

Map of Indonesia showing location of Lombok and Jakarta
The tremors prompted a large-scale evacuation of a nearby volcano.

A spokesman for Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency told the AFP news agency that many buildings had been affected in Lombok's main city of Mataram.

Patients at Denpasar hospital in Bali were evacuated from the building and tended to by doctors in the streets.

The quake was felt for several seconds in Bali, where people ran out of buildings.

"All the hotel guests were running so I did too. People filled the streets," said Michelle Lindsay, an Australian tourist in Bali told Reuters news agency.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45076800

 

[Abdullah719]

Indonesia earthquake: at least 98 dead after quake strikes Lombok

At least 98 people have been confirmed dead and more than 236 severely injured in a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that rocked the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok on Sunday evening.

The damage in northern Lombok was “massive”, a spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency said. In several districts, more than half the homes were destroyed or severely damaged.

The death toll is expected to rise, as rescuers are yet to reach some areas. Rescue efforts have been hampered by power outages, broken bridges and a lack of phone reception in some areas.

All but two of the confirmed dead were on Lombok, authorities said. One person died in Denpasar on neighbouring Bali and one died on the Gili islands, which lie a few miles off Lombok’s north-west coast.

More than 100 aftershocks have hit the area since the quake that struck the island at 6.46pm local time on Sunday. Lombok was hit by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake last week, killing 16 people and and briefly stranding hundreds of hikers on the slopes of a volcano.

President Joko Widodo, better known by his nickname Jokowi, expressed “deep sorrow for our brothers” and pledged to rebuild buildings damaged in the disaster, noting that emergency teams were still surveying the full extent of the damage.

The quake triggered widespread panic across Lombok, with residents fleeing their homes and heading to higher ground, after the tremor initially triggered a tsunami warning. The alert was later cancelled.

Rescue officials said much of the damage had hit Lombok’s main city of Mataram, with several areas losing power and patients evacuated from the main hospital, witnesses and officials said.

“Everyone immediately ran out of their homes, everyone is panicking,” Iman, who like many Indonesians has one name, told AFP.

The United States Geological Survey said the epicentre of the quake was on land on Lombok, though initial reports put it just off the coast. It struck at a depth of 31km (19 miles).

More than 2,700 mostly foreign tourists have been evacuated from the tiny, coral-fringed Gili islands. Footage posted online by rescue officials showed hundreds of panicked tourists and locals crowded on to powder-white beaches waiting for transport.

James Kelsall, a 28-year-old British tourist, was visiting one of the Gili islands with his partner when the quake struck. Speaking from a beach as he awaited evacuation, the teacher told the Press Association: “There were lots of injuries and pain on the island from buildings that had collapsed onto people. The most terrifying part was the tsunami warning that followed. All the locals were frantically running and screaming, putting on life jackets.”

Hospitals are reportedly full and injured people are being treated in carparks and makeshift medical tents.

Fitri, who lives in central Lombok, told CNN Indonesia: “I was wounded after my head was hit with rubble. My stomach hurts [from] carrying my child while I was trying to hold a wall that was collapsing.”

Two helicopters have been deployed to assist in emergency operations, and the military has sent troops and medical personnel as well as medical supplies and communications equipment.

Government ministers and officials from countries around the region attending a summit on security and counter-terrorism in Mataram were among those evacuated from their hotels.

Singapore’s law and home affairs minister, K Shanmugam, wrote on Facebook that his 10th-floor hotel room shook violently and walls cracked. “It was quite impossible to stand up. Heard screams,” he wrote. “Came out, and made my way down a staircase, while building was still shaking. Power went out for a while. Lots of cracks, fallen doors.”

The Australian home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, said on Twitter everyone from his country’s delegation was safe.

Sunday’s quake was also strongly felt in Bali, where people ran out of houses, hotels, and restaurants. Pictures showed damage to two shopping malls and a temple in Ubud. Despite superficial damage, flights from Lombok airport and Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport continued to operate on Sunday evening.

“All the hotel guests were running, so I did too. People filled the streets,” said Michelle Lindsay, an Australian tourist in Bali. “A lot of officials were urging people not to panic.”

American model Chrissy Teigen was on holiday in Bali with her family when the quake struck, and tweeted throughout the tremors.

Indonesia, one of the most disaster-prone nations on Earth, straddles the Pacific “ring of fire”, where tectonic plates collide and many of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...uake-strikes-indonesia-killing-at-least-three

 

[Abdullah719]

Buildings collapse as strong new quake rocks Indonesia, death toll tops 300

The Indonesian island of Lombok was shaken by a third big earthquake in little more than a week Thursday as the official death toll from the most powerful of the quakes topped 300.

The strong aftershock, measured at magnitude 5.9 by the U.S. Geological Survey, caused panic, damage to buildings, landslides and injuries. It was centred in the northwest of the island and didn't have the potential to cause a tsunami, Indonesia's geological agency said.

Videos showed rubble strewn across streets and clouds of dust enveloping buildings. In northern Lombok, some people leaped from their vehicles on a traffic-jammed road while an elderly woman standing in the back of a pickup truck wailed "God is Great."

An Associated Press reporter in the provincial capital, Mataram, saw people injured by the quake and a hospital moving patients outside.

The aftershock caused more "trauma," said national disaster agency spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

Wiranto, Indonesia's top security minister, told reporters the death toll from Sunday's magnitude 6.9 quake had risen to 319. The announcement came after an inter-agency meeting was called to resolve wildly different figures from various government offices.

"We are taking action as fast as we can to handle this disaster," he said.

'She was trying to get out'
Nguroho said in statement that the death toll will continue to rise because rescue workers are still finding victims in the ruins of collapsed buildings and some people who are already buried are not yet included in the official toll.

Grieving relatives were burying their dead and medics tended to people whose broken limbs hadn't yet been treated in the days since the quake. The Red Cross said it was focusing relief efforts on an estimated 20,000 people yet to get any assistance.

In Kopang Daya village in the hard-hit Tanjung district of north Lombok, a distraught family was burying a 13-year-old daughter who was struck by a collapsing wall and then trampled when Sunday's quake caused a stampede at her Islamic boarding school.

Villagers and relatives prayed outside a tent where the girl's body lay covered in a white cloth.

"She was praying when the earthquake happened," said her uncle Tarna, who gave a single name. "She was trying to get out, but she got hit by a wall and fell down. Children were running out from the building in panic and she was stepped on by her friends."

Nearly 68,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in Sunday's quake and 270,000 people are homeless or otherwise displaced, according to the disaster agency's latest update.

"People are always saying they need water and tarps," said Indonesian Red Cross spokesperson Arifin Hadi. He said the agency has sent 20 water trucks to five remote areas, including one village of about 1,200 households.

Struggle to treat injured villagers
In Kopang Daya, injured villagers got their first proper treatment Thursday after medics arrived with a portable X-ray machine and other supplies. They tended to an elderly woman with an injured face and hips who had been knocked over by her grandson as they scrambled from their house.

"Her son managed to get out from the house when the earthquake hit but the grandmother and grandson were left behind," said a relative, Nani Wijayanti. "The grandson tried to help the grandmother to get out but he pushed too hard."

A July 29 quake on Lombok killed 16 people.

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

Wiranto, who goes by one name, said the government will develop a plan to rebuild communities on Lombok, which like its more famous neighbour, Bali, is a popular tourist destination with powder white beaches, mountains and a lush interior.

"We will make a new roadmap for what we are going to do after this emergency response is finished. For example, how we can deal with the number of damaged houses, mosques, schools, hospitals. Who will rebuild and how much money and how long it takes?"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/indonesia-lombok-earthquake-deaths-aid-rescue-effort-1.4778734