14 killed in Lombok quake

Off the cliff: Toppled homes at a village after the quake in Lombok. — Reuters

Lombok: A powerful earthquake on the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok killed at least 14 people, injured scores and damaged hundreds of homes, officials said.

The shallow 6.4-magnitude quake, which jolted the island in the early morning, sent people running outside in panic and triggered landslides on popular mountain hiking routes.

The initial tremor in the north of the island was followed by two strong secondary quakes and more than 100 aftershocks.

“Based on reports, at least 14 people died, 162 were injured and thousands of homes were damaged,” Indonesian disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement, adding that five of the dead were children.

As authorities scrambled to assess the damage to buildings and infrastructure, popular trekking trails on Mount Rinjani were closed because of landslides, according to the disaster agency.

One local trek organiser described how rocks rained down on Spanish hikers and their guide as they were caught on a mountain trail.

“My trekking guide who was accompanying two tourists from Spain suffered from minor injuries during the jolt.

“They were hiking from Segara Anak Lake to Plawangan and rocks were falling on them during the quake,” said Karyadi, the owner of a guesthouse near Rinjani where the pair were staying.

“Our guests were in shock because of the incident,” said Karyadi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

“There have been almost non-stop tremors since this morning,” he said.

The epicentre of the earthquake struck 50km northeast of Lombok’s main city Mataram, the United States Geological Survey said, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.

USGS said two of the aftershocks measured more than 5-magnitude.

The jolt was felt some 100km away in the bustling holiday island of Bali, although there were no immediate reports of damage there.

“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,” Zulkifli said.

No tsunami alert was issued, according to Indonesia’s geophysics and meteorology agency. — AFP