MAUMERE: A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck Indonesia’s Flores region on Monday, two days after a more powerful 7.7-magnitude quake killed at least 53 people and forced thousands from their homes, authorities said.
The latest quake hit at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), according to the German Research Centre for Geosciences. It came as rescue teams continued to dig through debris and search for victims buried under landslides triggered by Saturday’s larger temblor, which shook six regencies on Flores, a predominantly Catholic island in the Muslim-majority nation.
Rescue efforts remained focused on three regencies that were still inaccessible: the hardest-hit Manggarai, East Manggarai and Nagekeo.
“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.
The death toll from Saturday’s magnitude 7.7 earthquake rose to 53 after rescue teams recovered six more bodies on Sunday, authorities said. At least 135 people were injured.
More than 900 homes were destroyed and 450 others damaged in East Nusa Tenggara province, forcing about 5,000 people into temporary shelters. At least 241 homes were damaged in the Flores region alone, said Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management Agency’s chief for disaster prevention.
Saturday’s quake occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers shortly before 6 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey said. Residents fled in panic as tsunami warnings were issued and later lifted.
Authorities have recorded at least 995 aftershocks since Saturday, though only 46 were felt by residents, Muhari said.
Many residents in Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park and one of Indonesia’s best-known tourist destinations, spent the night outdoors because of the aftershocks.
“The shaking was terrifying, so intense that my house nearly collapsed,” said farmer Anastasia Imad, speaking from a makeshift green tent beside her damaged home. “We feared the aftershocks would bring it down on us while we slept.”
Landslides blocked sections of the Trans-Flores Highway, a roughly 700-kilometer road linking communities across the mountainous island.
Relief workers distributed rice, ready-to-eat meals, drinking water, blankets and medicine, while emergency shelters were set up for displaced residents. Authorities said restoring electricity and communications, as well as delivering aid to remote villages isolated by landslides, were among the biggest challenges.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped arc of seismic faults and volcanoes.
Flores has experienced 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 earthquake triggered a tsunami on Sulawesi that killed more than 4,400 people. In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 quake off Sumatra unleashed a tsunami that killed about 230,000 people in a dozen countries.
