Another quake claims lives in Indonesia
PALU, Indonesia — An earthquake today collapsed homes on Indonesia’s Java island, killing at least three people, and shook the tourist hotspot of Bali, two weeks after an earthquake-tsunami disaster in a central region of the archipelago.
Indonesia’s disaster agency said today’s quake was centered at sea, 34 miles northeast of Situbondo city, and was also felt in Lombok. The U.S. Geological Survey said it had a 6.0 magnitude.
The agency said the worst affected area was in the Sumenep district in East Java where three people died and several homes were damaged.
It said “the earthquake was felt quite strongly by people in Sumenep and Situbondo for 2-5 seconds.”
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are holding annual meetings on Bali through Sunday.
The country is still working to recover from the Sept. 28 quake and tsunami that killed more than 2,000 people and left perhaps thousands more buried in mud in some neighborhoods of Palu city in central Sulawesi.
Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said Wednesday that the death toll from the double disaster on Sept. 28 has risen to 2,045, with most of the fatalities in the coastal city of Palu. More than 80,000 people are living in temporary shelters or otherwise displaced, he said.