Tsunami warning issued as massive earthquake strikes off Indonesia’s Flores island
The quake struck early in the morning near a tourist hotspot.
A massive earthquake has struck off Indonesia, triggering a tsunami warning.
Geoscience Australia reports the quake measured at a 7.7 magnitude and hit about 20km underground just off the north coast of Flores island about 5am on Saturday.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Earthquake severely damages port terminal in Indonesia
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It was followed by several aftershocks — measuring up to a 6.2 magnitude — across the coastline in the hours after the initial quake.
Indonesia’s geophysics agency BMKG issued a tsunami warning for some regions if the country.
Locals in coastal towns across the East Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi regions have been urged to “immediately guide their communities for evacuation”.
Australia’s tsunami warning centre said the quake will have “no tsunami threat to the Australian mainland, islands or territories”.
Footage geolocated by 7NEWS.com.au shows people running for their lives as huge chunks of debris fell off a building at a port in Maumere.
Other images and videos shared to social media, which are yet to be verified, also show several buildings across the region had been damaged in the earthquake.
Two confirmed dead in earthquake
The country’s Disaster Countermeasure Agency confirmed a man and a woman were the first known victims of the disaster.
“Once the data are confirmed, we will officially announce the final number of casualties and the extent of damage to buildings caused by the earthquake,” agency spokesman Berton Suar Pelita Panjaitan told reporters.
The US Geological Survey suggests about 500,000 people were exposed to very strong or severe shaking, which is capable of slight to moderate damage in well-built structures and great damage in poorly built structures.
Latest earthquake to rock the nation
Indonesia has seen several devastating earthquakes in the past. The country sits on the Ring of Fire, a band around the Pacific Ocean that sets off frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity.
The ring is one of the most seismically active areas in the world, spanning from Japan and Indonesia on one side of the Pacific to California and South America on the other.
The catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was sparked when Indonesia’s Sumatra island was hit by a quake with a magnitude of 9.1.
The resulting disaster killed more than 220,000 people along the ocean’s coasts, more than half of them in Indonesia.
More recently, hundreds were killed when a 6.9 earthquake hit the island of Lombok in August of 2018. Later that month a trio of intense earthquakes shook several islands in the South Pacific and Indonesia.
More to come ...
Originally published on 7NEWS
