A magnitude 6.2 aftershock rocked Indonesia’s Lombok on Thursday, sparking fresh panic on the tropical tourist island as the official death toll from a powerful earthquake four days earlier almost doubled to 259. Reuters witnesses reporting on the aftermath of Sunday’s quake in the north of the island said buildings and walls that had already been weakened collapsed, and people ran out onto roads even as rocks tumbled down from hillsides.
“Evacuees and people ran out of houses when they felt the strong shake of the 6.2 magnitude quake,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB), said on Twitter. “People are still traumatized. Some buildings were damaged further because of this.” Officials said the epicenter of the aftershock was on land and so there was no risk of a tsunami. The United States Geological Survey recorded the latest quake at 5.9, at a depth of 10 km (six miles). READ MORE
