190 Malaysians evacuated from Lombok
KUALA LUMPUR: About 190 Malaysians are being evacuated from Lombok, Indonesia, after a deadly magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck the holiday island on Sunday killing at least 98 people and damaged thousands of buildings.
One of the evacuees was Home Affairs Ministry secretary-general Datuk Alwi Ibrahim and his delegation who were there to attend a regional meeting.
“The Malaysian embassy is facilitating the return of all Malaysians in Lombok,” Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said yesterday.
The evacuees had been transported to Jakarta and would head back to Malaysia via AirAsia flights from yesterday and today.
“Malaysia is ready to give humanitarian aid to Indonesia but we have not received an official request from their government for aid,” he said at a press conference at the Parliament lobby .
The quake came just a week after another deadly tremor surged through Lombok and killed 17 people, including a Malaysian woman.
Saifuddin also pointed out that the Malaysian non-governmental organisation Global Peace
Malaysia is on the island to help earthquake victims.
Meanwhile, Mercy Malaysia sent Mercy exco and rapid assessment team leaders, Norazam Ab Samah and Nurhisyam Aziz, to join its ground personnel Richard Hotmayoko in Lombok at 5.30pm yesterday.
“We have received information on what is needed from the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, but we still need to determine the scale of damage before deciding on our next action plan,” said Norazam.
He said the buildings there were not safe for lodging and the volunteers were forced to camp outdoors.
The volunteers are expected to be there for five days and would extend their stay if needed.
AFP reports that rescuers have been fanning out across Lombok and evacuated more than 2,000 tourists.
Rescuers yesterday searched for survivors in the rubble of houses, mosques and schools destroyed in the latest disaster on Sunday evening.
Najmul Akhyar, the head of North Lombok district, estimated that 80% of that region was damaged by the quake.
“We expect the number of fatalities to keep rising,” Nugroho said. “All victims who died are Indonesians.”
He said up to 20,000 people may have had to quit their homes in Lombok and paramedics, food and medication were badly needed.
The spokesman said search and rescue teams also rescued between 2,000 and 2,700 tourists from the Gili Islands, three tiny, coral-fringed tropical islands a few kilometres off the northwest coast of Lombok.
Authorities initially said 1,200 people were stuck on the islands but scaled up the figure early in the evening. Some tourists chose to stay behind.
Footage posted online by Nugroho showed hundreds crowded onto powderwhite beaches desperately awaiting transport off the normally paradise Gilis.
“We cannot evacuate all of them all at once because we don’t have enough capacity on the boats,” Muhammad Faozal, the head of the tourism agency in West Nusa Tenggara province, said, adding two navy vessels were on their way.
Seven Indonesian holidaymakers died on the largest of the three islands, Gili Trawangan, while another local woman died in nearby Bali.
Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, who was in Lombok for a security conference when the earthquake struck, described on Facebook how his hotel room on the 10th floor shook violently.
“Walls cracked, it was quite impossible to stand up,” he said.
Bali’s international airport suffered damage to its terminal but the runway was unaffected and operations had returned to normal. Disaster agency officials said. Lombok airport was also operating.