Rescuers combed through debris for survivors on Saturday after a powerful earthquake struck off Flores island in eastern Indonesia, killing 20 people and sending thousands fleeing.
Rescue official Fathur Rahman told AFP at least 20 people were confirmed dead on the popular tourist island and six others reported injured.
At
least two people were known to be trapped alive under rubble following the 7.7-magnitude quake, he said.
“I have never felt an earthquake this big,” Yulian Juita Ekalia, who lives in Ruteng city more than 100 kilometres west of the epicentre, told AFP by telephone.
“It felt like we were on a trampoline; it was really scary,” said the 37-year-old university lecturer, who jolted awake at around 5.30 am (local time).
“As I rushed to get outside, everything in the house fell down: the television, my son’s trophies, the dish racks, suitcases on top of the wardrobes. When I got outside, my son and neighbours were already there, screaming in fear.”
Fathur said the focus has shifted to locating victims who may be buried under rubble, but rescue efforts have been complicated by landslides cutting off roads.
Residents in Nagekeo, an area close to the epicentre, raced for higher ground as the sea retreated early on Saturday – a possible sign of an approaching tsunami, AFP journalists witnessed.
While a tsunami warning was lifted, authorities urged people not to return to damaged buildings for fear that aftershocks may bring them down.
Many remained outside by lunchtime as dozens of aftershocks continued shaking the island, the strongest measured at a magnitude of 6.1.
Yulian said she had dragged her stove outside and was cooking there, fearing further tremors.
Outside a nearby hospital, she said she saw patients being treated under emergency tents.
Seeing images online of her university badly damaged, Yulian said she was “grateful that the quake happened on a Saturday morning when there was no campus activity … I can’t imagine what it would have been like if it happened while we were all there”.
Nagekeo resident Yohanes Babo, 56, said he was at a market when the earth started shaking in the early morning.
“The shaking was strong. Thankfully, we were already outside the house,” he told AFP.
