At least 14 dead as strong earthquake hits Indonesian island of Lombok

HANOI – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck the island of Lombok, a popular tourist destination in Indonesia, on Sunday, leaving at least 14 dead and hundreds of buildings and other infrastructure works severely damaged.

In addition to the fatalities, at least 162 people were injured, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency.

More than 1,000 homes were damaged by the earthquake, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the agency.

The dead include a Malaysian citizen, Indonesia’s National Disaster Search and Rescue agency said, with casualties in Lombok’s northern and eastern districts.

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Occurred early in the morning, the shaking surprised many people in the bed who threw themselves into the street for fear of landslides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=29&v=3nU0AB1Kb9M

With epicenter 50 kilometers northeast of the city of Mataram (north of Lombok), at a depth of seven kilometers, the shaking was noticeable in neighbouring Bali and followed by about 130 aftershocks, one of them of magnitude 5.7, indicated the US Geological Service.

 

Given the tremor, the authorities closed the Mount Rinjani National Park in prevention of rock slides in the vicinity of the volcano, one of the island’s tourist attractions.

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On the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity because it rests on tectonic plates in frequent collision, Indonesia is shaken every year by some 7,000 telluric movements of varying intensity.

In 2004, a powerful earthquake off the northwest coast of the island of Sumatra generated a tsunami that killed 280,000 people in a dozen countries on the Indian Ocean, most of them from Indonesia.

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