RUTENG, Indonesia (AP) — Rescuers in eastern Indonesia recovered six more bodies Sunday, a day after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake, raising the death toll to 53, authorities said, as thousands of displaced people spent the night outdoors for fear of aftershocks. Rescuers dug through the rubble for people buried under earthquake-triggered landslides in six regencies on Flores, a predominantly Catholic island in the Muslim-majority country. They focused on three regencies that remained inaccessible: Manggarai, East Manggarai and Nagekeo, the most affected. “We have cleared most of the landslides and reopened roads to previously isolated villages, although communications disruptions and power outages continue to hamper search efforts,” said Fathur Rahman, head of the search and rescue office in Maumere, the capital of Sikka regency. The agency said more than 900 homes were destroyed and 450 more damage occurred in East Nusa Tenggara province, forcing about 5,000 people to seek temporary shelters. At least 241 homes were damaged in the Flores region alone, Muhari said. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) shortly before 6 a.m. Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Residents fled in panic when tsunami warnings were issued and then lifted. Since then, authorities have recorded at least 995 aftershocks, but only 46 were felt by residents, said Abdul Muhari, head of disaster prevention at the National Disaster Management Agency, adding that 135 people were injured. Many residents of Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park, one of Indonesia’s best-known tourist destinations, spent the night outdoors due to the aftershocks. “The shaking was terrifying, so intense that my house almost collapsed,” said Anastasia Imad, a farmer, speaking from a makeshift green tent next to her damaged house. “We were afraid the aftershocks would knock us down while we were sleeping.” The landslides blocked sections of the Trans-Flores Highway, a roughly 700-kilometer (435-mile) highway linking communities across the mountainous island. Meanwhile, aid workers distributed rice, prepared meals, drinking water, blankets and medicine, while emergency shelters were set up for displaced residents. Officials said restoring electricity and communications, as well as delivering aid to remote villages isolated by landslides, were among the biggest challenges. Subscribe to Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the day’s biggest headlines. Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped arc of seismic faults and volcanoes. Flores has experienced some of the country’s deadliest disasters. In 1992, a powerful earthquake and tsunami killed about 2,500 people on the island. In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake triggered a tsunami on the island of Sulawesi that killed more than 4,400 people. In 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed about 230,000 people in a dozen countries.___Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
