Indonesia Quake Toll Rises to 53 as Search Goes On
Rescuers recovered six more bodies on Sunday, raising the death toll from Friday’s magnitude-7.7 earthquake off Flores to 53, according to officials. Thousands of people remain displaced across the East Nusa Tenggara region, where buildings collapsed in Maumere and a key port was badly damaged. Search operations continued through the day.
The toll has climbed steadily since Friday as crews reach collapsed homes and outlying villages, and with thousands displaced the humanitarian task is only beginning. Indonesia’s position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” makes powerful quakes a recurring danger, and the damage to the port at Maumere complicates the delivery of aid to islands that depend on it. Aftershocks have kept residents sleeping outdoors, wary of returning to cracked buildings. The disaster has run in grim parallel with Colombia’s far deadlier quake, a reminder of how quickly the earth can turn on the communities above it. Watch for the final toll and how quickly the port reopens.