Scores killed in Indo quake
A powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok on Sunday, killing at least 82 people and shaking neighboring Bali, one week after another quake on the island killed more than a dozen.
Officials expect the death toll to rise.
The quake, which triggered a brief tsunami warning, damaged buildings as far away as Denpasar on Bali, including a department store and the airport terminal, where ceiling panels were shaken loose.
Video showed screaming people running in panic from houses in a Bali neighborhood and vehicles rocking. On Lombok, soldiers and other rescuers carried injured people on stretchers and carpets to an evacuation center.
Muhammad Rum, head of the disaster-management agency in West Nusa Tenggara province, which includes Lombok, told Indonesian TV the death toll was 39 before it more than doubled.
The quake, recorded at magnitude 7.0, struck early Sunday evening at a depth of six miles in the northern part of Lombok.
“I was watching TV when I felt a big shake,” said Harian, a Lombok woman who uses one name. “The lamp was shaking and people were shouting, ‘Get out!’ I ran out into the dark because the power cut off.”
A tsunami warning was lifted after waves just 6 inches high were recorded in three villages.
There was a half-hour evacuation at the Lombok airport, with TV images showing crying women consoling one another outside the terminal building.
The Bali and Lombok airports continued operating Sunday night, according to the director general of civil aviation.
The island was already reeling from a magnitude-6.4 quake on July 29, which killed 16 people.