Death toll rises as earthquake strikes Indonesia

FAN Editor

Last Updated Jul 29, 2018 12:42 AM EDT

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A shallow, magnitude 6.4 earthquake early Sunday killed at least 10 people and injured 40 on Indonesia’s Lombok Island, officials said. The island is a popular tourist destination next to Bali. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at a depth of 7 kilometers, about 4.4 miles.

Dozens of single-story houses and taller buildings and was felt in a wider area, including in Bali. Though no damage or casualties were reported.

East Lombok district was the hardest hit with eight deaths, including a Malaysian national, said a spokesman for Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. The number of casualties could increase as data was still being collected from other locations on the island, he said.

The quake also triggered a large landslide from Mount Rinjani. Authorities were still monitoring its impact.

In East Lombok and the provincial capital of Mataram, it lasted about 10 seconds, sending residents to flee their homes onto streets and fields, Nugroho said. He said most of the fatalities and injuries were caused by falling slabs of concrete.

Photos released by the agency showed damaged houses and the entrance to the popular Mount Rinjani National Park, which was immediately closed for fear of landslides.

Damage is seen following an earthquake in Lombok

Damage is seen following an earthquake in Lombok, Indonesia, on Sunday, July 29, 2018.

Santri Dpi via REUTERS

Like Bali, Lombok is known for pristine beaches and mountains. Hotels and other buildings in both locations are not allowed to exceed the height of coconut trees.

“We jumped out of our beds to avoid anything falling on our heads,” Jean-Paul Volckaert told Reuters news agency. Volckaert said he was sleeping in at a hotel near Senggigi during the quake.     

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Free America Network Articles

Leave a Reply

Next Post

Tencent Offers Google a Way Back Into China

Chinese tech giant Tencent (NASDAQOTH: TCEHY) owns WeChat, the country’s most popular mobile messaging app, and its video game portfolio makes it the biggest game publisher in the world. That’s why it wasn’t surprising when Alphabet‘s (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google, which left mainland China after clashing with regulators in […]