JAKARTA: A strong and shallow earthquake early Sunday killed at least 14 people and injured more than 160 on Indonesia’s Lombok island, a popular tourist destination next to Bali, officials said.
The quake damaged more than 1,000 houses and was felt in a wider area, including on Bali, where no damage or casualties were reported.
The US Geological Survey said the quake struck at a depth of only 7 kilometers (4.4 miles). Shallow earthquakes tend to do more damage than deeper ones.
East Lombok district was the hardest hit with 10 deaths, including a Malaysian tourist, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency. The number of casualties could increase as data was still being collected from other locations on the island, he said.
At least 162 people were injured, including 67 hospitalized with serious injuries, Nugroho said.
The quake caused blackouts in East Lombok and North Lombok districts and triggered a large landslide from Mount Rinjani, an active volcano. Rescuers were evacuating more than 800 tourists from the mountain.
In East Lombok and the provincial capital of Mataram, the quake lasted about 10 seconds, causing 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 disaster agency showed damaged houses and the entrance to the popular Mount Rinjani National Park, which was immediately closed for fear of landslides.
Television footage showed residents remaining outside, fearing aftershocks, as the injured were being treated on mattresses taken out of their partially damaged houses and patients were wheeled out of a hospital.
Eka Fathurrahman, the police chief in East Lombok, said the Malaysian woman who died was part of a group of 18 Malaysian tourists who had just visited Mount Rinjani when the quake jolted their guesthouse and toppled a concrete wall. Six other people were injured at the guesthouse.
Fathurrahman said many injured people who were treated outside a damaged clinic were evacuated to the main hospital farther away after more ambulances reached the devastated location in East Lombok’s Sembalun village.
“Residents refused to enter their houses as prolonged aftershocks are still being felt,” he said.
Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency recorded more than 130 aftershocks.
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.
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.
Strong quake hits Indonesian island, killing at least 14
Strong quake hits Indonesian island, killing at least 14
- Many buildings were damaged, Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said
- Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismic activity hotspot
US border agent shoots and wounds two people in Portland
- The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement
A US immigration agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon, authorities said on Thursday, leading local officials to call for calm given public outrage over the ICE shooting death of a Minnesota woman a day earlier.
“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more,” Portland police chief Bob Day said in a statement.
The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The statement said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over the agents. In response, DHS said, “an agent fired a defensive shot” and the driver and a passenger drove away.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the circumstances of the incident.
Portland police said that the shooting took place near a medical clinic in eastern Portland. Six minutes after arriving at the scene and determining federal agents were involved in the shooting, police were informed that two people with gunshot wounds — a man and a woman — were asking for help at a location about 2 miles (3 km) to the northeast of the medical clinic.
Police said they applied tourniquets to the man and woman, who were taken to a hospital. Their condition was unknown.
The shooting came just a day after a federal agent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in her car in Minneapolis.
That shooting has prompted two days of protests in Minneapolis. Officers from both ICE and Border Patrol have been deployed in cities across the United States as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While the aggressive enforcement operations have been cheered by the president’s supporters, Democrats and civil rights activists have decried the posture as an unnecessary provocation.
US officials contend criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists have increasingly used their cars as weapons, though video evidence has sometimes contradicted their claims.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement his city was now grappling with violence at the hands of federal agents and that “we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”
He called on ICE to halt all its operations in the city until an investigation can be completed.
“Federal militarization undermines effective, community-based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region,” Wilson said. “I will use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”
