Landslides, damage as Indonesian island is hit by fresh quake

SEMBALUN, Indonesia — A strong earthquake jolted the Indonesian island of Lombok on Sunday, causing landslides on Mount Rinjani and damaging buildings, as it tries to recover from a temblor earlier this month that killed hundreds of people.

The US Geological Survey measured the quake, which was centered in the northeast of the tourist island, at magnitude 6.3 with a depth of 7 kilometers.

It was felt on the neighboring island of Bali and was preceded a few minutes earlier by a magnitude 5.4 quake, also in Lombok’s northeast.

An Associated Press reporter on Lombok said the tremor caused landslides on the slopes of Rinjani and panic in villages. Video shot by the Indonesian Red Cross showed huge clouds of dust billowing from the mountain’s slopes.

The shaking toppled motorcycles and there was damage to buildings in Sembalun subdistrict, including a community hall that collapsed.

The hall had sustained damage in earlier quakes, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. Homes and a mosque were also damaged, he said.

It was the third major quake in less than a month to rock the island, after deadly tremors on July 29 and Aug 5 and numerous aftershocks, but this time there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

“The earthquake caused people to panic and flee their houses,” national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told Metro TV.

“There have been no reports of death or (serious) damage but people are traumatized.”

The magnitude 7 quake that struck Lombok about two weeks ago killed 460 people, damaged tens of thousands of homes and displaced several hundred thousand people.

Mount Rinjani has been closed to visitors following the July earthquake that killed 16 people, triggered landslides and stranded hundreds of tourists on the mountain, an active volcano.

Residents said the latest earthquake was felt strongly in East Lombok.

“Everybody ran outside their house. They’re all gathering in an open field, still terrified,” said Endri Susanto, a children rights activist in Mataram.

“People are traumatized by the previous earthquakes and aftershocks never seem to stop.”

Meanwhile, a massive quake of magnitude 8.2 struck in the Pacific Ocean close to Fiji and Tonga on Sunday but it was so deep that it did not cause any damage, authorities said.

The US Tsunami Warning Center also said the quake was too deep to cause a tsunami.

The quake’s depth at 560 kilometers would have dampened the shaking at the surface.

The director of Fiji’s Mineral Resources Department, which runs the country’s seismology unit, said on Sunday the earthquake was widely felt, but there were no reports of damage.

“We are monitoring the situation and some places felt it, but it was a very deep earthquake,” Director Apete Soro said by telephone.