Jakarta, Aug 16 (Alliance News): Around 5,000 people have been evacuated after a magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck eastern Indonesia, killing at least 51 people, blocking roads and triggering landslides, authorities said Sunday.
Thirty-six people were seriously injured in Saturday morning’s earthquake in East Nusa Tenggara province, while 77 others suffered minor injuries, Deputy Health Minister Benjamin Paulus Octavianus said during a televised meeting.
The earthquake was followed by around 341 aftershocks and is Indonesia’s deadliest since a 2022 earthquake in West Java killed hundreds of people.
More than 3,300 people in the Sikka region either evacuated their homes or took shelter at a sports arena, according to the disaster mitigation agency BNPB.
Several Sikka residents were stranded outside collapsed homes under makeshift tarpaulin shelters, while injured people were treated in a tent outside a hospital in the port town of Maumere.
“Almost all of Sikka’s residents didn’t dare stay indoors, so they slept on a porch or a tent outside,” Simon Subandi, deputy regent of Sikka, told KompasTV.
More than 3,500 military and police personnel have been deployed to the affected region, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said rescuers had reached parts of Maumere that were previously cut off by landslides. Authorities had not immediately determined how many people remained missing, although many were believed to be trapped under rubble.
More than 1,300 homes were damaged, BNPB said, while 20 petrol stations remained closed because of power outages, according to state energy company Pertamina.
The East Nusa Tenggara government is considering declaring a provincial emergency, BNPB said, which would allow authorities to mobilise additional resources and funding.
Indonesia’s geophysics agency said the area was previously struck by a magnitude-7.5 earthquake in 1992 that caused extensive destruction.
Indonesia, an archipelago of around 290 million people, lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the world’s most seismically active regions where tectonic plates meet, resulting in frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
