ISLAMABAD – A powerful earthquake rocked Indonesia’s Lombok Sunday, sendingpeople running from their homes and triggering a tsunami alert, just a weekafter a quake killed 17 people on the holiday island.
The latest tremor had a magnitude of seven and struck just 10 kmunderground according to the US Geological Survey. It was followed by twoaftershocks.
Officials issued a tsunami warning, which was later cancelled
“Please go to a place with higher ground, while remaining calm and notpanicking,” Dwikorita Karnawati, head of the agency for meteorology,climatology and geophysics, told local TV.
Seawater had entered two villages as high as 10 cm and 13 cm (4-5 inches),Karnawati said later.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency,said many buildings were thought to have been damaged in Lombok’s main cityof Mataram.
“They are mostly buildings with weak construction material,” Nugroho said.
Residents in Mataram described a strong jolt that sent people scramblingout of buildings.
“Everyone immediately ran out of their homes, everyone is panicking,” Imantold AFP.
Another resident Rita Siswati, 47, said the quake knocked out electricityand patients were evacuated from the main hospital.
The epicentre was in the sea 18 km northwest of Lombok, the USGS said, farfrom the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.
The USGS reported two aftershocks, one with a magnitude of 5.4.
The quake was felt some 100 km (60 miles) away on the bustling resortisland of Bali, and there were early reports of damage including to NgurahRai International Airport.
Agung Widodo, a resident of Bali’s main town of Denpasar, said he felt twostrong tremors.
“The first one lasted quite a while, the second one was only about 2-5seconds. The first one was the bigger one,” he told AFP.
People could be heard screaming as locals and tourists ran onto the road.
The tremor came a week after a shallow 6.4-magnitude quake hit Lombok,killing 17 people and damaging hundreds of buildings.
It triggered landslides that briefly trapped trekkers on popular mountainhiking routes.
Indonesia, one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth, straddles theso-called Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide and many ofthe world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
In 2004 a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off thecoast of Sumatra in western Indonesia killed 220,000 people in countriesaround the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia. – APP/AFP