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INDONESIA-QUAKE
Three killed as powerful quake jolts Indonesia
JAKARTA, July 29, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – At least three people were killed after
a shallow 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Lombok on
Sunday, officials said.
The powerful quake, whose epicentre was at a depth of seven kilometres
(four miles), hit at 6:47 am local time (2247 GMT Saturday), the United
States Geological Survey said.
Lombok in southeastern Indonesia is a popular tourist destination, and lies
around 100 km east of the resort island of Bali.
The quake struck 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Lombok’s main city Mataram,
the USGS said, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the
island.
“One person died in East Lombok and two died in North Lombok,” Sutopo Purwo
Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency, said in a
statement.
No details were provided on how the victims died.
At least two dozen others were injured in the earthquake, and one house was
badly damaged in North Lombok.
Island authorities have temporarily closed the hiking trails on Mount
Rinjani amid fears of landslides after the quake, Nugroho said.
No tsunami alert was issued, said Hary Tirto Djatmiko, spokesman for
Indonesia’s geophysics and meteorology agency, but more than more than 40
aftershocks were recorded.
People living near the epicentre said they felt a strong jolt.
“The earthquake was very strong… and everybody in my house panicked, we
all ran outside,” said Zulkifli, a resident of North Lombok, close to the
epicentre.
“All my neighbours also ran outside and the electricity was suddenly cut
off,” he told AFP.
Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, sits on the so-called
Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismic activity hotspot.
It is frequently hit by quakes, most of them harmless. However, the region
remains acutely alert to tremors that might trigger tsunamis.
In 2004, a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the
coast of Sumatra, in western Indonesia, killed 220,000 people in countries
around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0822 hrs