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Indonesia yesterday sent rescuers fanning out across the holiday island of Lombok and evacuated more than 2,000 tourists after a powerful earthquake killed at least 98 people and damaged thousands of buildings.
The shallow 6.9-magnitude quake sparked terror among tourists and locals alike, coming just a week after another deadly tremor surged through Lombok and killed 17 people. Rescuers yesterday searched for survivors in the rubble of houses, mosques and schools destroyed in the latest disaster on Sunday evening.
National disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said there were fears a number of people were trapped in the ruins of a collapsed mosque in the northern village of Lading-Lading. Footage he posted on Twitter showed the large concrete mosque had pancaked.
A lack of heavy equipment and shattered roads were hampering efforts to reach survivors in the mountainous north and east of the island, which had been hardest hit. Najmul Akhyar, the head of North Lombok district, estimated that 80 percent of that region was damaged by the quake.
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“We expect the number of fatalities to keep rising,” Nugroho said. “All victims who died are Indonesians.”
He said up to 20,000 people may have had to quit their homes on Lombok and paramedics, food and medication were badly needed.
The spokesman said search and rescue teams also rescued between 2,000 and 2,700 tourists from the Gili Islands, three tiny, coral-fringed tropical islands a few kilometres off the northwest coast of Lombok.
Authorities initially said 1,200 people were stuck on the islands but scaled up the figure early in the evening. Some tourists chose to stay behind.
Footage posted online by Nugroho showed hundreds crowded onto powder-white beaches desperately awaiting transport off the normally paradise Gilis.
