Powerful quakes rock Indonesia, leaving 40 dead on Flores Island

Powerful earthquakes struck opposite ends of the Indonesian archipelago on Saturday, leaving at least 40 people dead in the remote island of Flores and damaging scores of buildings.

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A magnitude 7.7 quake struck off Flores island around 6 a.m. local time, according to the US Geological Survey, triggering a tsunami warning that was later lifted. Ende, near the epicenter, is about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of Bali and roughly twice that distance from capital Jakarta.

About 13 hours later, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake jolted Pematangsiantar in North Sumatra province, about 830 miles northwest of Jakarta. There were no initial reports of casualties or damage from the Sumatra temblor.

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The quakes are the latest in a series of disasters to strike Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The country is battling a surge in forest fires as a developing El Niño threatens to bring even drier weather and intensify risks at the peak of its dry season. Floods and landslides on Sumatra late last year killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million.

Major quakes around the world since June have caused thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in destruction. Across western Colombia, at least 172 buildings collapsed and more than 10,000 homes were left uninhabitable in a 7.4 magnitude earthquake on Monday, leaving over 280 people dead and many more missing.

A 7.1 magnitude tremor in Japan in late July killed at least 30 people and jolted an area that serves as a hub for the country’s semiconductor industry. And more than 6,000 are dead in Venezuela from twin quakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that struck within seconds of each other on June 24, leveling buildings and crippling power and water systems.

Saturday’s tremor was one of the largest to hit Flores since 1992, when one with a 7.5 magnitude caused significant damage as well, Wijayanto, a director at the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency, said at a briefing televised on local media.

Last year, the eruption of the Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano in the east of Flores island sent an ash column over 10 kilometers into the sky and stranded thousands of holidaymakers including those in Bali. Labuan Bajo on Flores is a gateway to Komodo National Park, home to the giant carnivorous Komodo dragon.

Indonesia’s 17,000 islands are prone to earthquakes because the country straddles the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines and volcanoes that causes frequent seismic upheavals.

More than 2,000 people were killed and about 80,000 people displaced in Central Sulawesi in September 2018 after a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck the island. In December that year, over 400 people died when Mount Anak Krakatau erupted and partially collapsed, causing a tsunami along the Sunda Strait.

At least 160,000 people were killed on Sumatra as a result of a 9.1 magnitude earthquake and tsunami on Boxing Day in 2004. More than 1,100 people were killed in another earthquake on the same island in 2009.

In the Nagekeo, Sikka and West Manggarai regencies on Flores, Saturday’s “very strong” quake was felt for about a minute, prompting many people to rush out of their homes, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. The temblor was experienced as far away as South Sulawesi, it said.

At least 50 injuries have been reported in addition to the deaths, said Fathur Rahman, head of the search and rescue office in the town of Maumere on Flores. More than 2,000 have evacuated while 70 homes were damaged — ranging from severe to light — while some public buildings were also impacted, officials said earlier.

Monitoring from the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency previously indicated at least 52 aftershock events with magnitudes ranging from 3.6 to 6.2. The agency issued a tsunami warning for nearby coastal areas and urged some residents to evacuate, before lifting it as the threat passed.

—With assistance from Brian Eckhouse, Iain Boekhoff and Brian K. Sullivan.

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