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Lombok hit by yet another deadly earthquake as tremors shake Pacific

The latest deadly quake came as the Indonesian island attempts to recover from a series of devastating tremors.

The latest deadly quake came as the Indonesian island attempts to recover from a series of devastating tremors.

The popular Indonesian holiday island of Lombok has again been hit by a series of powerful earthquakes, including a 6.9 magnitude tremor on Sunday that killed at least one person and caused others to rush out of buildings in panic.

The quakes, which could be felt on the neighbouring island of Bali, came two weeks to the day after another 6.9 earthquake killed 460 people on Lombok.

The latest Lombok tremors came as a massive 8.2 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Fiji and Tonga.

The Pacific quake was too deep to cause major damage, the US Tsunami Warning Centre said.

Lombok is still recovering from a series of quakes in recent weeks that have left an estimated 460 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.

There were no immediate reports of widespread damage or other casualties from Sunday’s quakes, but authorities are still assessing the damage.

“I was in a restaurant when the shaking started. The lights went out, they are still out. Everyone is still outside, not going back in,” Teddy Aditya, an official at Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said from Mataram, the main city in Lombok.

“We are urging the public not to panic and to stay away from buildings and big trees. We are also urging them not to believe hoaxes and false information,” he told Reuters.

One person died in a 6.3 magnitude quake on Sunday morning, disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said via Twitter.

Lombok’s Mount Rinjani, where hundreds of trekkers were stranded after the July 29 quake, was closed and there were no tourists there, Mr Nugroho added.

The US Geological Survey revised down the biggest tremor in the evening from magnitude 7.2 and estimated the depth at 20 km and the epicentre 4km south of Belanting on the north of Lombok.

Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency said there was no risk of a tsunami.

In Bali, the latest big quake was felt for a few seconds, rattling windows and furniture.

A French tourist, who gave his name only as Diamba, staying in the resort of Amed on Bali’s east coast, said by text message that everyone in his hotel ran out of their rooms after the tremor.

Lombok, just east of Bali, the Southeast Asian country’s most famous tourist destination, has been rocked by a series of quakes and aftershocks since July 29, including a 6.9-magnitude tremor on August 5.

Lombok suffered damage running to more than 5 trillion rupiah (about $467 million) from the August 5 earthquake, authorities said last week.

More than 350,000 people fled their homes after that quake to shelter in government-provided tents or makeshift structures in open fields.

Authorities said aid was slow getting to some of the hardest-hit areas as they are remote.

The quake off the coast of Fiji and Tonga was estimated at a depth of 560km and was too deep to cause a tsunami.

The director of Fiji’s Mineral Resources Department, which runs the country’s seismology unit, told Reuters the earthquake was widely felt, but there were no reports of major damage.

-with AAP

Topics: Earthquakes
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