Around 5,000 people have been evacuated after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck eastern Indonesia, killing at least 51 people, blocking roads, and triggering landslides, authorities said on Sunday (16th August).
36 people were seriously injured in the 15th August Saturday morning quake in East Nusa Tenggara province, while 77 had minor injuries, Deputy Health Minister Benjamin Paulus Octavianus told a televised meeting. The quake, followed by some 341 aftershocks, is the Southeast Asian nation’s deadliest since a 2022 earthquake killed hundreds in West Java. The area was also hit in 1992 by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that caused extensive destruction, Indonesia’s geophysics agency said.
The powerful tremor struck early on Saturday morning, with its epicentre off the northern coast of Flores island in East Nusa Tenggara. The US Geological Survey recorded a magnitude of 7.7 at a depth of around 10 km, approximately 68 km north-northwest of the city of Ende. Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported similar details and initially issued a tsunami warning, which was later lifted after small waves were recorded in some coastal areas.
Residents across affected regencies including Sikka, Manggarai, and East Manggarai fled their homes as buildings collapsed and landslides cut off roads. More than 3,300 people in the Sikka region self-evacuated or were stranded in a sports arena, said the disaster mitigation agency BNPB. Some Sikka residents were stranded outside collapsed homes under a makeshift tent made out of tarp, while others received treatment in a tent outside a hospital in the port town of Maumere.
“I only brought my body,” Abdul Mutas, 63, told Reuters after he and his family slept on a tarp surrounded by trees in the town of Sikka. “The tides were rising, so we ran,” Mutas said, describing their reaction to the quake.
“Almost all of Sikka’s residents didn’t dare stay indoors, so they slept on a porch or a tent outside,” Simon Sabandi, deputy regent of Sikka, told news channel KompasTV. Many families across the affected areas spent the night outdoors under tarpaulins or on porches, too fearful of further tremors to return indoors.
More than 3,500 military and police officers have been deployed to the region to support local teams in clearing blocked routes and reaching isolated communities, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said in a statement. Rescuers reached parts of Maumere that had been blocked by landslides, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said.
There was no immediate count of those missing, but most of them were trapped under rubble, and more than 1,300 homes were damaged, BNPB said. Early reports indicated hundreds of homes and public facilities, including schools and health centres, had been affected. Twenty petrol stations were not operational due to power outages, said state energy firm Pertamina, complicating relief efforts in remote areas.
The East Nusa Tenggara government is considering declaring an emergency for the province, BNPB said, which would allow authorities to mobilise resources and funding. Officials are coordinating the delivery of aid and medical support as recovery operations intensify. Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 290 million people, straddles the Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismically active zone where tectonic plates meet, triggering frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and making such events a recurring threat.
For now, many residents remain in temporary shelters, waiting for aftershocks to subside and for assessments of their damaged homes to be completed. The focus remains on locating any remaining missing persons and providing care to the injured while restoring access to cut-off areas in East Nusa Tenggara.
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