Malaysian woman, aged 30, dies in Lombok quake

At least 10 killed and the number is expected to keep rising after 6.4-magnitude quake jolts popular tourist island.

The epicentre was located far from Lombok’s tourist belt but was felt in Bali, 100km away. (AFP pic)

JAKARTA: A Malaysian woman, aged 30, was among at least 10 people killed when a powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck the popular Indonesian tourist island of Lombok today.

“Some 40 people are injured and dozens of houses were damaged,” said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency.

“We estimate the number will keep rising because we are not done collecting data,” Nugroho said.

The 30-year old Malaysian woman was among the victims, he said. Those injured were hit by debris.

The strong tremor sent people running in panic from homes and hotels in the early morning and was felt some 100km away in Bali, although there were no immediate reports of damage there. Two strong secondary quakes and more than 60 aftershocks followed.

As authorities scrambled to assess the damage to buildings and infrastructure, popular trekking trails on the remote Mount Rinjani were closed because of landslides, according to the disaster agency.

“The earthquake was very strong… and everybody in my house panicked, we all ran outside,” said Zulkifli, a resident of North Lombok, close to the epicentre.

“All my neighbours also ran outside and the electricity was suddenly cut off,” Zulkifli told AFP.

The United States Geological Survey said the epicentre of the shallow earthquake was located 50km northeast of Lombok’s main city Mataram, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.

It said two of the aftershocks measured more than 5-magnitude.

No tsunami alert was issued, according to Indonesia’s geophysics and meteorology agency.

At the Katamaran Hotel & Resort in Senggigi beach, some 30 guests gathered in the hotel lobby for around half an hour before venturing back to their rooms.

“They calmed down and returned to their room once we explained the earthquake did not trigger a tsunami, everything is back to normal now,” receptionist Ni Nyoman Suwarningsih told AFP.