INDONESIA: Tourists flee island after earthquake kills 98

Rescuers used diggers and heavy machinery to clear debris and search for survivors on Monday after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake killed at least 98 people on Indonesia’s resort island of Lombok, prompting a tourist exodus. The island was further rattled by a magnitude 5.2 earthquake on Monday evening. Valentin Valla, a French tourist in the […]

Rescuers used diggers and heavy machinery to clear debris and search for survivors on Monday after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake killed at least 98 people on Indonesia’s resort island of Lombok, prompting a tourist exodus. The island was further rattled by a magnitude 5.2 earthquake on Monday evening. Valentin Valla, a French tourist in the town of Mataram said the quake woke up tourists who ran out of their hotel, but there was no apparent damage. 

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said it expected the death toll to rise once the rubble of more than 13,000 houses was cleared away after two powerful quakes in a week. Power and communications were severed in some areas, with landslides and a collapsed bridge blocking access to areas around the epicenter in the north. Officials said more than 2,000 people had been evacuated from the three Gili islands off the northwest coast of Lombok, where fears of another tsunami spread.