Search for survivors continues after powerful earthquake kills dozens in Indonesia
By Lex Harvey, Masrur Jamaluddin, Hira Humayun, CNN
Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) — Rescuers are digging through the rubble of collapsed buildings in Indonesia, searching for bodies and possible survivors following the deadly magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck the country Saturday, killing at least 53 people.
More than 1,300 homes were damaged, more than two thirds of those severely, as well as health care facilities, schools and government offices, BNPB said Sunday, Reuters reported. Hundreds of aftershocks followed the initial quake.
Scores sustained injuries, and thousands have been displaced, Deputy Health Minister Benjamin Paulus Octavianus told a televised meeting.
The earthquake struck off the coast of Flores island at about 6 a.m. local time Saturday, about 68 kilometers (42 miles) northwest of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province, damaging buildings and forcing residents to flee their homes.
Residents in the coastal village of Sikka were stranded outside collapsed homes overnight, while others received hospital treatment in the port town of Maumere.
Abdul Mutas, 63, and his family slept on a tarp surrounded by trees. “The tides were rising, so we ran,” he told Reuters, adding: “I only brought my body.”
“Almost all of Sikka’s residents didn’t dare stay indoors,” the village’s deputy regent Simon Subandi told KompasTV.
Rescue teams resumed searches Sunday in locations that had been deemed inaccessible since the quake, Associated Press reported.
“We have cleared most landslides and reopened roads to previously isolated villages, although communication 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.
Fifty thousand aid packages are en route to the island, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency BNPB said.
The quake, and many of its aftershocks, have been felt across Flores, a lush and mountainous island in the Sunda chain, which also includes tourist hotspot Bali.
Flores is known for its colorful volcanic lakes and as a gateway to Komodo National Park, home of the largest lizards on Earth. Its population of roughly 2 million is largely spread out across small villages.
Videos posted to social media showed buildings collapsing and panicked residents running and screaming, as dust filled the sky. One video showed damage to a hospital in the village of Aeramo.
Just hours after the first earthquake, another, 6.9 magnitude quake rattled Northern Sumatra in Indonesia, followed later by a third 5.7 magnitude quake roughly 600 miles to the north, off the Minahasa Peninsula, the USGS said.
Theresia Uta, 52, told CNN she had just finished breakfast in the coastal town of Maumere when the first earthquake hit. She ran outside and held onto a tree in the yard for 10 minutes, until the shaking stopped.
“Although I have experienced several earthquakes on Flores island before, this was by far the strongest and longest earthquake I have ever experienced. The shaking was extremely powerful and violent,” she said.
Students at the Roman Catholic St. Peter Major Seminary in Sikka were attending morning Mass when the roof of an assembly hall collapsed, causing people to flee in panic, the seminary’s rector, Rev. Guidelbertus Tanga, said, according to the Associated Press.
“Our students and nuns ran out in panic beneath a collapsing roof,” Tanga said. “At least one priest suffered a broken leg after jumping from the second floor of a building during the quake.”
About 2,000 residents of Nagekeo regency evacuated following the quake, as a precautionary measure, BNPB said.
The agency deployed a helicopter along with its emergency response team, noting that the landscape of the area, which consists of many islands, makes access challenging.
The earthquake in Indonesia follows large-scale disasters in Venezuela and Colombia. In June, Venezuela was struck by two powerful earthquakes, in which thousands lost their lives. Another earthquake that hit western Colombia on Monday has left at least 287 people dead.
An archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia is prone to seismic activity.
Indonesia has suffered several devastating earthquakes in the past. The Southeast Asian nation 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.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Kareem El Damanhoury, Teele Rebane, Brandon Miller, Dakota Smith, Michael Rios, Jonny Hallam and Laura Sharman contributed to this report.
