Buildings fall as aftershock rocks Lombok
PEMENANG, Indonesia: A magnitude5.9 aftershock rocked Indonesia’s Lombok yesterday.
Witnesses reported collapsed buildings after the latest in a series of tremors on the island that have killed more than 220 people in the past two weeks.
Reuters witnesses reporting on the aftermath of Monday’s quake in the north of the island said people ran out on to roads in panic and some buildings collapsed.
‘‘Evacuees and people ran out of houses when they felt the strong shake of the 5.9magnitude quake . . . People are still traumatised. Some buildings were damaged further because of this quake,’’ Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s dis
aster mitigation agency (BNPB), said on Twitter.
Officials said the quake’s epicentre was on land and there was no risk of a tsunami.
The United States Geological Survey recorded the latest quake at 5.9, with a depth of 10km.
The official death toll from Monday’s quake stood at 220 yesterday, although some Indonesian officials put the number at 347. Sutopo did not give a toll, saying only that there had been ‘‘a big increase’’.
A humanitarian crisis is also looming on the island, where thousands have been left homeless and in desperate need of clean water, food, medicine and shelter.
Officials said about threequarters of Lombok’s rural north had been without electricity since Monday, although power had since been restored in most areas.
Aid workers have found some hamlets hard to reach because bridges and roads were torn up by the disaster.
Thousands of tourists have left Lombok since Monday, fearing further earthquakes, some on extra flights provided by airlines and others on ferries to Bali. — Reuters