As Indonesia reels from strong quake, another one hits

As the death toll from a Sunday earthquake in Indonesia’s Lombok Island keeps rising, the resort has been rocked by yet another strong earthquake.

According to Press TV quoting the Southeast Asian country’s meteorology and geophysics agency the newer quake, measuring 6.2 in magnitude, struck on Thursday.

People went outdoors in panic and some buildings collapsed, according to witnesses.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s Disaster and Mitigation Agency (BNPB) classified the tremor as an aftershock, as the epicenter of the previous quake had been in the same area.

The government-run news agency Antara said the death toll from the earlier quake, which struck with a scale of 6.9 on Sunday, had risen to 347.

Another Indonesian government agency put the fatality rate higher, at 381, saying that the figure might climb even higher as rescuers worked to free people trapped under the rubble.

The Sunday quake destroyed thousands of houses, shops, and mosques, also forcing thousands of holidaymakers to cut short their vacation.

Indonesia’s national disaster agency announced on Thursday that at least 1,400 people had been seriously injured and 156,000 displaced in the earlier quake.

The Sunday tremor triggered at least 230 aftershocks, and more are expected in the next two weeks.

Lombok had already been hit by a 6.4-magnitude quake on July 29, which killed 17 people and briefly stranded several hundred trekkers on the slopes of Mount Rinjani.

ME