‘We are on stilts. It felt like a ride’

The earthquake came as a shock whether the person experiencing it was a politician, a celebrity or a local resident.

Singapore Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, who was on the 10th floor of a hotel in the Lombok town of Mataram at the time of the quake, wrote on Facebook that his room shook violently and walls cracked.

“It was quite impossible to stand up. Heard screams. Came out, and made my way down a staircase, while building was still shaking. Power went out for a while. Lots of cracks, fallen doors,” he wrote.

US television host and celebrity tweeter Chrissy Teigen was on the nearby island of Bali with her husband John Legend, the singer, and their two young children as the earthquake struck. Teigen tweeted: “Bali. Trembling. So long.” She added: “Oh man. We are on stilts. It felt like a ride.”

A resident of Mataram told AFP: “Everyone immediately ran out of their homes, everyone is panicking”. An unnamed man told the BBC: “They were initially just little shocks but then they started to get bigger and bigger and people started to shout ‘earthquake’, then all the staff panicked and rushed out of the building”.

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister tweeted that he and his delegation were safely evacuated in darkness from a Lombok hotel. Peter Dutton said the quake “was powerful enough to put us on the floor” and cut power.