Around 5,000 individuals were evacuated following a powerful magnitude-7.7 earthquake that struck eastern Indonesia, resulting in a death toll of at least 53 and causing road blockages and landslides. Over 130 people sustained injuries, many of them with fractures.
This earthquake on Saturday marked the deadliest in Indonesia since a similar event in 2022 claimed the lives of hundreds in West Java. The Sikka region saw more than 3,300 individuals self-evacuating or seeking refuge in a sports arena, as reported by the disaster mitigation agency BNPB.
Residents in Sikka found themselves stranded outside collapsed homes, seeking shelter under improvised tarps. Some injured individuals received medical attention in makeshift tents outside a hospital in Maumere.
“I only brought my body,” shared Abdul Mutas, 63, recounting the evacuation process with his family as they slept outdoors in Sikka. Simon Subandi, deputy regent of Sikka, highlighted that nearly all residents opted to sleep outside due to safety concerns.
A significant deployment of over 3,500 military and police personnel was initiated in the affected region, as confirmed by Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya.
The fear of aftershocks loomed large among residents, particularly at the closed port in Maumere, where debris littered the area from collapsed structures. The disaster agency noted close to 1,000 aftershocks since the initial quake, prompting hundreds of locals to seek shelter in a designated sports stadium.
Efforts to locate potential survivors trapped under rubble in the worst-hit areas of Manggarai, East Manggarai, and Nagekeo were ongoing, with challenges posed by landslides and ongoing aftershocks. While power restoration was near completion, authorities continued working on repairing distribution lines.
The East Nusa Tenggara government declared an emergency for the province, enabling the mobilization of resources and funding, according to BNPB. Geology expert Dwikorita Karnawati highlighted the earthquake risk in the region due to the presence of the “Flores back-arc thrust fault,” a significant fault system.
The affected area had experienced a devastating magnitude-7.5 earthquake in 1992, causing widespread damage, as noted by Indonesia’s geophysics agency. Indonesia’s location on the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a zone prone to seismic and volcanic activity due to tectonic plate interactions, underscores the country’s vulnerability to natural disasters.