The death toll from a 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck the popular tourist island of Lombok on Sunday night has risen to at least 98, Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency said Monday.
At least 236 others were injured, while thousands of houses were destroyed in the quake that was centered on the island's northern coast at a depth of 31 kilometers, according to the agency.
(People receive medical treatment)
[Photo courtesy of National Disaster Mitigation Agency]
The majority of fatalities occurred in the worst-affected North Lombok Regency, with many victims dying after becoming buried under debris from collapsed homes, agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
"The number of fatalities, however, will certainly increase because there are still victims buried under the debris of a collapsed mosque and have not been evacuated in the village of Lading-Lading in North Lombok Regency," Sutopo said.
Witnesses said a lot of people were praying in the mosque when quake struck at 7:46 p.m. and it collapsed.
Before heavy machines were brought in to clear away debris just hours earlier, evacuation efforts were done manually, Sutopo said.
The Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysics Agency said small tsunamis measuring 10 and 13 centimeters in height were detected in the villages of Carik, Badas, Lembar and Beno on Lombok and its surrounding islands. It later lifted a tsunami warning issued soon after the quake.
The agency also said 132 aftershocks had been recorded as of 8 a.m.
The quake was centered 48 km northeast of Mataram, the island's largest city, 1,390 km east of Jakarta, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake was also strongly felt in Bali, a resort island just next to Lombok, as well as the eastern part of Java.
The quake caused the postponement of a meeting on counterterrorism, involving political and defense ministers from some Asian and Pacific countries, that was scheduled to start Monday in Mataram.
(A motorcycle is seen on the ground of a mall after the quake)
[Getty/Kyodo]
Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Wiranto, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, said most of the ministers were attending a gala dinner on Sunday night when the quake struck.
Singaporean Home Minister K. Shanmugam wrote on his Facebook page that he was working on his laptop in his 10th floor hotel room when it happened.
"Suddenly the room shook violently, walls cracked, it was quite impossible to stand up. Heard screams," he said. "We only grabbed the most essential items before getting out -- in my case my laptop with my government emails."
TV footage showed a father sobbing when his daughter with head injuries could not get medical treatment at a village because its only public health center had collapsed. Its medical staff decided to bring her by car to a hospital in a nearby city.
Sutopo, the disaster mitigation agency spokesman, said about 900 foreign and local tourists were being evacuated from three of the Gili Islands off Lombok by rubber dinghy before being transferred to six ships.
A video footage taken by a volunteer at the agency showed tourists, fearing a tsunami, packing the beaches of two of those islands popular with divers to evacuate by boat.
Sunday's quake occurred just a week after an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 struck Lombok, killing 17 people and injuring many others.
According to Sutopo, about 10,000 people displaced by that quake remain in temporary shelters, and the latest temblor may increase the number of the displaced "because the areas affected by the Aug. 5 quake are larger than those by the July 29 one."
