Powerful 7.7-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Indonesia Leaving At Least 20 Dead
A powerful magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s eastern Flores region early Saturday morning, killing at least 20 people, collapsing buildings, and triggering landslides that blocked vital mountain routes, according to the United States Geological Survey and local rescue officials.
The shallow undersea tremor occurred at 5:58 a.m. local time at a depth of 10 kilometers, with its epicenter located 68 kilometers north-northwest of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and the Associated Press. The shaking was felt intensely across much of Flores Island, sending panicked residents fleeing to higher ground and prompting temporary tsunami warnings across several regional provinces before authorities lifted the alert.
Fathur Rahman, head of the Maumere Search and Rescue Agency, told Reuters and the Associated Press that rescuers recovered at least 20 bodies across the devastated regencies of Sikka, West Manggarai, and East Manggarai. Among the dead were eight victims pulled from a landslide in the village of Reok in Manggarai. Rescue teams recorded at least six severe injuries and reported two villagers missing, believed to be buried under tons of mud displaced from surrounding hills.
East Nusa Tenggara Police Chief Rudi Darmoko said communications signals and power outages in urban and rural pockets severely hampered information flow and complicated emergency response efforts. Landslides triggered in Ende regency cut off the Trans-Flores highway, a roughly 700-kilometer paved mountain road spanning Flores Island from Labuan Bajo to Larantuka, according to the Associated Press. The National Disaster Management Agency deployed a helicopter to assist with logistics, emergency supplies, and potential evacuations across the geographically fragmented island chain.
Structural damage was widespread across the predominantly Catholic island. Yohanna Embu, a resident of Sikka regency, told NBC News and the Associated Press that numerous buildings sustained heavy damage, including the collapsed waiting room at the Pelni port terminal in Maumere. At St. Peter Major Seminary in Sikka, also known as Ritapiret Seminary, students and nuns fled in panic when an assembly hall roof collapsed during morning Mass, according to the Rev. Guidelbertus Tanga, the seminary’s rector, who noted that at least one priest suffered a broken leg after jumping from a second-floor building during the quake.
Local television footage broadcast patients being evacuated from hospitals as medical staff moved beds, intravenous stands, and oxygen cylinders outdoors to establish temporary treatment areas. In Nagekeo regency, situated closest to the epicenter, about 2,000 villagers fled to temporary shelters, according to the Associated Press, while rescue teams attempted to reach the isolated area via blocked roads and a supplementary ferry.
Indonesian authorities initially issued a tsunami warning for East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, and Southeast Sulawesi provinces, urging coastal residents to move inland or to higher ground. The warning was lifted after the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency determined monitoring showed no significant sea-level changes posing a threat to coastal communities. Australia’s tsunami warning center separately confirmed that the undersea earthquake posed no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, islands, or territories.
The disaster highlights the ongoing seismic hazards faced by Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands positioned along the Pacific Basin’s “Ring of Fire,” an arc characterized by frequent volcanic eruptions and fault lines. In December 1992, a magnitude-7 earthquake generated a tsunami that killed approximately 2,500 people on the southeastern shores of Flores.
Rescue teams continue clearing debris and gathering casualty reports across the affected regencies as communication lines are gradually restored.