A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Flores island early Saturday, killing at least 20 people, collapsing buildings and triggering brief panic across a region long accustomed to destructive quakes.
Authorities said six people were injured and two remained missing after a landslide set off by the quake. Indonesia’s disaster agencies issued a tsunami warning and urged coastal residents to move to higher ground, later lifting the warning roughly three hours after the quake. Accounts differed on what monitoring showed in the interim, with one report saying officials detected no significant sea level changes posing a threat, while another said tsunami waves of less than three feet were recorded in several areas before the warning was lifted.
Indonesian and international seismic agencies also gave differing readings on the quake’s exact timing and depth. The U.S. Geological Survey placed the quake at 5:58 a.m. local time at a depth of 10 kilometers, while Indonesia’s geophysics agency, BMKG, recorded the initial quake at 4:58 a.m. at a depth of 15 kilometers. The epicenter was located roughly 42 miles north northwest of the city of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province.
What We Know So Far
Fathur Rahman, head of the Maumere Search and Rescue Agency, said rescuers had recovered at least 20 bodies across the three hardest hit regencies of Sikka, West Manggarai and East Manggarai, including eight bodies pulled from a landslide in the village of Reok in Manggarai. Six people with severe injuries were taken to nearby hospitals, and rescuers were continuing to search for two villagers believed buried under mud from a hillside landslide triggered by the quake.
East Nusa Tenggara Governor Emanuel Melkiades Laka Lena said separately that at least five people died when rubble collapsed on them as they slept, though it remained unclear whether that figure was included within or separate from the overall count of 20 confirmed deaths.
East Nusa Tenggara Police Chief Rudi Darmoko said the earthquake caused severe damage and building collapses, adding that power outages across affected cities and villages had disrupted the flow of information and complicated search and rescue work. He said landslides in Ende regency had cut off the Trans Flores highway, a roughly 435 mile paved mountain road spanning the island from Labuan Bajo to Larantuka.
Rescue teams had not yet reached Nagekeo regency, the area closest to the epicenter, as of the latest reports, with communications signals affected and road access blocked by landslides. One rescue team attempted to reach the area by ferry instead. Indonesia’s national disaster mitigation agency, BNPB, said about 2,000 residents in Nagekeo evacuated to temporary shelters, with damage reported to homes, warehouses and government facilities alongside traffic congestion and power outages.
Television footage showed hospital patients being evacuated as a precaution, with staff moving beds, IV stands and oxygen equipment outdoors to set up temporary treatment areas. Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency deployed a helicopter to support logistics and potential evacuations, citing the region’s island geography as a significant challenge for ground based transportation and access.
What Witnesses Are Saying
Sikka resident Yohanna Embu said numerous buildings in the area were damaged by the shaking, including the collapsed waiting room at the port terminal in Maumere, and described panicked residents running toward higher ground.
The Rev. Guidelbertus Tanga, rector of St. Peter Major Seminary in Sikka, said students and nuns fled in panic as the roof of an assembly hall collapsed during morning Mass, adding that at least one priest suffered a broken leg after jumping from a building’s second floor during the quake.
Nona, a 51 year old resident of Talibura village, described the shaking as massive and said she and 12 others inside her home all ran to safety together. A video verified by Reuters showed part of a building collapsing into dust and rubble near a port in Maumere as bystanders screamed and ran.
Why This Matters
The quake was felt across a wide area, including East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara and parts of South Sulawesi, with BNPB reporting shaking that lasted roughly one minute in several locations. Damage was also reported in Labuan Bajo, the gateway town to Komodo National Park, one of Indonesia’s best known tourist attractions, as well as in Bima in neighboring West Nusa Tenggara province.
Indonesia’s vulnerability to this kind of disaster stems from its location along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of intense seismic and volcanic activity where multiple tectonic plates meet. The same area of Flores was struck by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in 1992 that triggered a tsunami killing about 2,500 people, underscoring the region’s long documented exposure to catastrophic seismic events.
Indonesia’s history includes several other major disasters, including a magnitude 7.5 quake in 2018 that caused tsunami and liquefaction damage in Palu, killing more than 4,400 people, and the magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra in December 2004 that triggered a tsunami killing 230,000 people across a dozen countries.
Australia’s tsunami warning center said the earthquake posed no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, its islands or territories, indicating the disaster’s impact remained regionally contained despite its scale.
What Happens Next
Search and rescue operations are continuing in hard hit areas, with helicopter support deployed to reach communities that remain difficult to access by road due to landslide damage. Authorities have not said when they expect to restore full communications and access to Nagekeo regency, the area closest to the epicenter.
Given the ongoing search for two people believed trapped under landslide debris and the communication gaps still affecting some regions, officials cautioned that the full scope of casualties and damage may not be clear for some time. Aftershocks are expected to continue following the initial quake, consistent with the pattern typically seen after major earthquakes in the region.
Reporting drawn from the Associated Press and Reuters
