Two earthquakes shook Indonesia this Saturday, one of magnitude 7.7 and another of magnitude 6.9. The authorities raised the death toll to 47, the first of which affected the coast of the Indonesian island of Flores, east of the archipelago, according to the country's National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB).
The second, with a magnitude of 6.9, shook the island of Sumatra, north of Indonesia, reported the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The tremor occurred at 5:54 p.m. local time (10:54 GMT) at a depth of 183 kilometers, according to USGS data, with no casualties or material damage reported so far. The tsunami warning has not been activated by the authorities either.
The closest urban point is the city of Pematangsiantar, which has a population of about 270,000 inhabitants, less than ten kilometers from the epicenter.
Fathur Rahman, head of emergency services, indicated that the toll from the Flores earthquake amounted to 40 dead and 50 injured on Saturday night, local time. Previously, the head of the national disaster management agency, Suharyanto, had reported 2,000 people evacuated from "the area by their own means."
The earthquake occurred around 6:00 a.m. local time (22:00 GMT on Friday) with the epicenter about 62 kilometers northwest of Ende, the most populated city in Flores, with about 90,000 inhabitants, and at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Authorities issued a tsunami warning and urged coastal residents to move to higher ground, but later canceled it when the weather agency said monitoring showed no significant changes in sea level that posed a threat to coastal communities.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) indicated that the earthquake hit the Flores region at a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles), at 5:58 a.m. local time. Its epicenter was located 68 kilometers (42 miles) north-northwest of the city of Ende, in East Nusa Tenggara province.
The weather agency said the quake was followed by 235 aftershocks as of Saturday afternoon, with the largest up to magnitude 6.2.
Sea level monitoring stations recorded tsunami waves reaching coastal villages in Manggarai and East Manggarai regencies, with waves up to 1.61 meters (5.3 feet) high, while waves of 0.94 meters (3.1 feet) were observed in Maurole, Ende regency.
Videos obtained by The Associated Press showed a coastal village covered in mud and debris after a 1.61-meter tsunami hit the village of Ngada in East Manggarai. Fishing boats were stranded on the shore, infrastructure damaged and homes surrounded by sediment left by the receding waters.
Tsunami waves greater than 0.5 meters were also detected in Bulukumba, South Sulawesi, and Sape, Bima Regency.
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 continue to collect reports of damage and casualties, but there are interruptions in communications," Darmoko said. He said landslides in Ende regency triggered by the earthquake also cut off the Trans-Flores Highway, a roughly 700-kilometer paved mountain road that runs through Flores Island, from Labuan Bajo to Larantuka.
The head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, Fathur Rahman, said rescuers have recovered at least 40 bodies, mostly in the three devastated regencies of Sikka, Manggarai and East Manggarai, and that about 50 people were taken to hospitals. More than 2,000 villagers in Nagekeo regency fled their homes for temporary shelters.
"Suddenly he started shaking and I panicked," Lukas Lotar, a 31-year-old hospital employee, told AFP. "The patients also fled; the shaking was strong. I saw that some walls had cracked," he added.
"People were panicking"
Residents of Maumere, one of the largest cities on the island of Flores, began to move to higher ground, an AFP correspondent observed.
He noted that the sea in the area could be seen receding, a common phenomenon before a possible tsunami.
"The tremor was strong. Luckily, we were already outside," Yohanes Babo, who was in the market when the ground began to shake, told AFP.
"People were in panic, running in all directions. At the moment we are evacuating (...) and trying to reach the highest areas," added this 56-year-old man, a resident of Nagekeo. "My family is safe and sound. No one was hurt."
Indonesia and neighboring countries experience frequent earthquakes due to their location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", an area of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and along the Pacific Ocean basin.
Among the deadly earthquakes Indonesia has suffered is a devastating 9.1 magnitude quake in 2004 off the coast of Sumatra, which triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 people across the region, including about 170,000 in Indonesia.
The tragedy of December 26 was one of the deadliest natural disasters in history.
In 2018, 2,200 people died in Palu, a city of about 400,000 people and capital of Central Sulawesi province, due to a magnitude 7.5 earthquake followed by a tsunami.
Then, that same year, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Palu, on the island of Sulawesi, left more than 4,300 people dead or missing.
