JAKARTA: A string of deadly earthquakes that rocked Indonesia’s Lombok island this summer killed 555 people and injured nearly 1,500, the disaster agency said Friday, with hundreds of thousands left homeless.
The picturesque island next to holiday hotspot Bali was hit by two deadly quakes on July 29 and August 5. On Sunday it was shaken by a string of fresh tremors and aftershocks, with the strongest measuring 6.9 magnitude.
Indonesia’s disaster agency said Friday most of the deaths occurred in the northern part of Lombok, with several also killed in neighboring Sumbawa island.
Many victims were killed by falling debris as the tremors rippled across the island, causing widespread devastation.
Whole communities were flattened, leaving cracked streets lined with rubble, caved-in roofs and collapsed buildings.
Some 390,000 people remain displaced after the quakes, the disaster agency said.
Aid organizations have vowed to step up humanitarian assistance on the island as devastated residents struggle in makeshift displacement camps.
They warned that access to food, shelter and clean water has been insufficient for some residents displaced by the disasters.
“We’ve deployed troops to isolated villages that are difficult to reach,” disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement.
“There are many villages... that are hard to access with motorbikes. Some aid has to be delivered on foot.”
Rebuilding costs are estimated to top seven trillion rupiah ($478 million).
Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where tectonic plates collide and many of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
In 2004, a massive 9.1 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, including 168,000 in Indonesia alone.
Indonesian earthquake death toll reaches 555
Indonesian earthquake death toll reaches 555
Uganda partially restores internet after president wins 7th term
- “The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report
KAMPALA: Ugandan authorities have partially restored internet services late after 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term to extend his rule into a fifth decade with a landslide victory rejected by the opposition.
Users reported being able to reconnect to the internet and some internet service providers sent out a message to customers saying the regulator had ordered them to restore services excluding social media.
“We have restored internet so that businesses that rely on internet can resume work,” David Birungi, spokesperson for Airtel Uganda, one of the country’s biggest telecom companies said. He added that the state communications regulator had ordered that social media remain shut down.
The state-run Uganda Communications Commission said it had cut off internet to curb “misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks.” The opposition, however, criticized the move saying it was to cement control over the electoral process and guarantee a win for the incumbent.
The electoral body in the East African country on Saturday declared Museveni the winner of Thursday’s poll with 71.6 percent of the vote, while his rival pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine was credited with 24 percent of the vote.
A joint report from an election observer team from the African Union and other regional blocs criticized the involvement of the military in the election and the authorities’ decision to cut off internet.
“The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report.
In power since 1986 and currently Africa’s third longest-ruling head of state, Museveni’s latest win means he will have been in power for nearly half a century when his new term ends in 2031.
He is widely thought to be preparing his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to take over from him. Kainerugaba is currently head of the military and has expressed presidential ambitions.
Wine, who was taking on Museveni for a second time, has rejected the results of the latest vote and alleged mass fraud during the election.
Scattered opposition protests broke out late on Saturday after results were announced, according to a witness and police.
In Magere, a suburb in Kampala’s north where Wine lives, a group of youths burned tires and erected barricades in the road prompting police to respond with tear gas.
Police spokesperson Racheal Kawala said the protests had been quashed and that arrests were made but said the number of those detained would be released later.
Wine’s whereabouts were unknown early on Sunday after he said in a post on X he had escaped a raid by the military on his home. People close to him said he remained at an undisclosed location in Uganda. Wine was briefly held under house arrest following the previous election in 2021.
Wine has said hundreds of his supporters were detained during the months leading up to the vote and that others have been tortured.
Government officials have denied those allegations and say those who have been detained have violated the law and will be put through due process.
