Search crews in eastern Indonesia clawed through wrecked buildings and debris on Sunday, racing to find anyone still alive after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake killed at least 51 people, injured more than 100 and forced thousands from their homes the previous day.
At least 24 deaths occurred in Manggarai regency, while 17 more were confirmed in neighboring East Manggarai. Fatalities were also recorded in Sikka, Ngada and Ende regencies, according to the national disaster management agency. Rescuers continued searching for people feared to be buried under landslides that swept across six regencies on the island of Flores, a mostly Catholic island in Indonesia, a nation with a Muslim majority.
The United States Geological Survey said the quake struck 68km (42 miles) north-northwest of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province, at a depth of about 10km (6 miles) off the coast of Flores. The tremor shook much of the island, sending panicked residents into the streets. Tremors were also felt in neighboring West Nusa Tenggara and parts of southern Sulawesi.
According to the disaster agency, the earthquake destroyed more than 900 homes and damaged close to 450 others, pushing roughly 5,000 people into temporary shelters. Thousands more stayed outdoors through the night, wary of powerful aftershocks. At least 167 public facilities, including schools, health centers and churches, suffered damage.
Relief workers have begun handing out rice, ready-to-eat meals, drinking water, blankets and medicine, while teams set up emergency shelters for displaced residents. Officials said restoring electricity and communications, plus delivering aid to remote villages cut off by landslides, remained among the most pressing problems.
The quake also struck Labuan Bajo, the entry point to Komodo National Park, one of Indonesia’s best-known tourist destinations. Landslides blocked stretches of the Trans-Flores Highway, a road spanning roughly 700km (435 miles) that connects communities across the mountainous island.
Many residents continued to sleep outside rather than risk returning to damaged homes. “The shaking was terrifying, so intense that my house nearly collapsed,” said Anastasia Imad, a farmer in Labuan Bajo, speaking from a makeshift green tent beside her damaged home. “We feared the aftershocks would bring it down on us while we slept.”
On Sunday, teams resumed searching areas that had been inaccessible since the tremor, particularly in Manggarai, East Manggarai and Nagekeo regencies. “We have cleared most landslides and reopened roads to previously isolated villages, although communication disruptions and power outages continue to hamper search efforts,” said Fathur Rahman, head of the search and rescue office in Maumere, the capital of Sikka regency. He added that rescuers were focused on scouring the rubble of collapsed homes and other buildings for potential victims.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, sits on the Pacific “ring of fire”, an arc of seismic faults and volcanoes prone to earthquakes and eruptions. Flores has witnessed some of the country’s deadliest disasters. A powerful earthquake and tsunami in 1992 killed about 2,500 people on the island. In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 quake triggered a tsunami on Sulawesi that killed more than 4,400 people, and in 2004 a magnitude 9.1 quake off Sumatra unleashed a tsunami that killed about 230,000 people across a dozen countries.
