Two earthquakes rock Lombok in a day, trigger landslides
LOMBOK, INDONESIA A strong earthquake rocked Indonesia's holiday island of Lombok yesterday, two weeks after a quake killed more than 480 people on the island and hours after another tremor triggered landslides, damaged buildings and sent people fleeing.
The magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 20km and about 5km south of Belanting town in East Lombok, according to the US Geological Survey. No tsunami warning has been issued.
Earlier yesterday, a tremor of magnitude-6.3 struck the island.
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Minor injuries were reported in the earlier quake.
"The earthquake caused people to panic and flee their houses," national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
Local disaster mitigation agency spokesman Agung Pramuja said several houses and other structures in the district of Sembalun, on the slopes of Mount Rinjani, collapsed yesterday after being damaged by the previous two quakes.
Residents said yesterday's earlier earthquake was felt strongly in East Lombok.
East Lombok resident Augus Salim told AFP: "I was driving to deliver aid to evacuees when suddenly the electricity pole was swaying. I realised it was an earthquake."
The tremor was also felt in Lombok's main town Mataram and on Bali.
Ms Asmaatul Husna told Reuters at a Mataram shopping mall where she works: "It was very strong. All the lights went out."
Said children's rights activist Endri Susanto in Mataram: "People are traumatised by the previous earthquakes, and aftershocks never seem to stop."
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