Flores, earthquake toll rises to 68 dead as island shakes again

The earthquake struck on August 15, local time, in the sea north-northwest of Ende, in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured a magnitude of 7.7 and a depth of ten kilometers: a shallow hypocenter, the condition that makes an oceanic tremor particularly destructive on the nearest coast. Indonesia’s meteorological and geophysical agency BMKG attributed the event to the fault system known as the Flores Back-Arc Thrust and issued a tsunami alert in the early hours, which was later lifted.

The death toll grew as verification on the ground progressed. The national disaster management agency BNPB had initially confirmed 47 deaths, spread across six regencies — Manggarai, East Manggarai, West Manggarai, Sikka, Ngada and Ende. The figure as of August 17 is at least 68 dead and over 200 injured. This is an increase due to progressive verification, not a correction of previous estimates: it remains a provisional toll, and for events of this kind the figure published is the most recent one verifiable at the time the newspaper goes online.

The new development in recent hours is the magnitude 5.9 tremor that hit Flores on August 17. It is a much lower value than the main quake, but it falls on already compromised building stock: in the province, more than 1,300 homes have been reported damaged, and on Flores island alone nearly 250 have been destroyed. It is the partially damaged houses that constitute the immediate problem, because a medium-energy aftershock can complete collapses already underway and because it forces people who should be sheltered indoors to remain outside their homes.

The second element is logistical. Flores is an elongated island, with inland centers connected by few ridge roads: when routes are cut off, villages remain served only by sea or air. Available sources indicate thousands of people awaiting aid in communities not yet reached, a condition that typically widens the gap between victims recorded in regency capitals and those in rural areas. This is the main reason why death tolls from island earthquakes continue to rise for days after the tremor.

The figures reported here come from Indonesian authorities — BNPB for casualties and damage, BMKG for seismic classification — and from the USGS for instrumental parameters, drawn from four independent journalistic sources across Asia, the Gulf and the United States. No citable official statement is available in the material at the editorial staff’s disposal, and this piece does not attribute any.

What remains measurable in the coming hours is the reopening of links to the inland regencies: until then, the damage count concerns only accessible areas, not the entire affected area.

Sources: South China Morning Post; Al Jazeera; The Watchers; NBC News.