A 7.7 quake off Flores kills at least 47, and rescuers still cannot reach everyone

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off Flores Island in eastern Indonesia early on Saturday, and by the end of the day at least 47 people were dead. It hit at 5:58am local time, about 68km north-northwest of the city of Ende, at a depth of only 10km. Depth matters: a shallow quake shakes the surface much harder than a deep one, because the energy passes through less rock before it reaches houses and roads. Al Jazeera reports that a tsunami warning went out along the coast and was lifted later, once monitors saw no dangerous change in sea levels.

The damage is spread across towns and villages in East Nusa Tenggara province. At least 157 houses were destroyed and close to 200 more were damaged, and about 2,000 villagers in Nagekeo regency moved into temporary shelters. Landslides blocked roads and cut communications. Rescue teams had still not reached Nagekeo by Saturday and were planning to go in by boat instead, while three helicopters and a rescue vessel carried people and supplies. One resident put the moment plainly: "The quake was massive, the shock was so strong, we were resting at home with family." Thirteen people got out of his house.

The ground did not settle. More than 230 aftershocks followed in a single day, the strongest at magnitude 6.2, and a separate magnitude 6.9 quake hit Sumatra later on Saturday. That one caused no reported deaths because it was very deep. Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", the belt of fault lines and volcanoes around the ocean where most of the world's large quakes happen. This same stretch of coast was hit in December 1992 by a quake that killed more than 2,500 people.

Why it matters

After a quake like this the death toll keeps rising for days, and it rises fastest in the places help cannot reach. If you live in eastern Indonesia, aftershocks can continue for a week or more, so treat cracked walls and damaged roofs as unsafe even once the shaking stops. Watch how quickly aid gets into Nagekeo and the other blocked areas, because that, more than the size of the quake, decides how many people survive it.