Fresh 5.9-magnitude quake hits Indonesia

A fresh earthquake struck Indonesia’s Flores region on Monday, measuring magnitude 5.9, according to Germany’s GFZ Research Centre for Geosciences. The quake hit at a shallow depth of 10 km (6 miles), rattling nerves in a region already reeling from a far more destructive earthquake just two days earlier.

The tremor comes as rescue teams on Flores continue digging through landslides and rubble from Saturday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which has now killed at least 53 people.

Rescue teams recovered six more bodies on Sunday, taking the death toll from Saturday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake to 53. Many of the thousands displaced by the disaster spent the night outdoors, too afraid of aftershocks to return to their homes.

The quake struck at a depth of 10 km just before 6 am local time on Saturday, according to the US Geological Survey. Authorities have since recorded at least 995 aftershocks, though only 46 were strong enough for residents to actually feel.

More than 900 homes were destroyed and 450 damaged across East Nusa Tenggara province, forcing about 5,000 people into temporary shelters. Officials said 135 people were injured, with at least 241 homes damaged in the Flores region alone. Residents fled in panic when tsunami warnings were issued after the quake, before later being lifted.

Search teams have been focused on three regencies that remained largely inaccessible Manggarai, East Manggarai and Nagekeo, the hardest-hit areas on the island. Landslides also blocked sections of the roughly 700-km Trans-Flores Highway, the road linking communities across the mountainous island.

“We have cleared most landslides and reopened roads to previously isolated villages, although communication disruptions and power outages continue to hamper search efforts,” said Fathur Rahman, head of the search-and-rescue office in Maumere, the capital of Sikka regency.

Relief workers have distributed rice, ready-to-eat meals, drinking water, blankets and medicine, and emergency shelters have been set up for displaced residents. Authorities say restoring electricity and communications, and delivering aid to remote villages cut off by landslides, remain among the biggest challenges.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” an arc of seismic faults and volcanoes that makes it one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

Flores in particular has a painful history with disaster. A powerful earthquake and tsunami in 1992 killed about 2,500 people on the island. In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake triggered a tsunami on Sulawesi that killed more than 4,400 people, and in 2004, a magnitude 9.1 quake off Sumatra unleashed a tsunami that killed about 230,000 people across a dozen countries.

As of Monday, the region continues to experience aftershocks, with the fresh 5.9-magnitude quake serving as a reminder that the danger on Flores is far from over. Rescue teams remain in the field, searching for survivors while aid workers push to reach communities still isolated by landslides and damaged infrastructure.

-The Indian Express