Najmul Akhyar, head of the North Lombok district, estimated that the quake destroyed 80 percent of the region.
“We expect the death toll to continue to rise,” Nugroho said. “All the victims who died were Indonesians.”
He said as much as 20,000 people can have been forced to depart Lombok and paramedics, food and medicine were desperately needed.
The spokesman said search and rescue teams also rescued between 2,000 and a couple of,700 tourists from the Gili Islands, three small tropical islands covered in coral a couple of kilometers off the northwestern coast of Lombok.
Authorities initially said 1,200 people were stranded on the islands, but within the early evening they said the number had increased. Some tourists decided to remain behind.
Footage posted online by Nugroho shows tons of of individuals crowded on powder-white beaches, desperately waiting for transport from the normally paradise Gilis.
“We cannot evacuate everyone directly because we do not have enough boat capability,” Muhammad Faozal, head of the tourism agency in West Nusa Tenggara province, told AFP, adding that two navy ships were on the way in which.
“It’s comprehensible that they need to depart Gilis, they’re panicking.”
In the early afternoon, tons of of weary tourists arrived with their luggage on the port of Bangsal, the principal connection between Lombok and the Gilis.
Margret Helgadottir, a holidaymaker from Iceland, described how people screamed when the roof of her hotel on certainly one of the islands collapsed.
“We just froze: luckily we were outside,” she said tearfully from the port of Lombok to where she was evacuated. “Everything went dark, it was terrible.”
Seven Indonesian holidaymakers died on the biggest of the three islands, Gili Trawangan, and one other local woman was killed on nearby Bali.
However, it was Lombok that bore the brunt of Sunday’s earthquake.
The shallow tremors sent 1000’s of residents and tourists scrambling outside, where many spent the night as strong aftershocks, including one measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale, shook the island.
The quake caused power outages in lots of areas on Monday, with some parts of Lombok left without power.
Hundreds of bloodied and bandaged victims were treated outside damaged hospitals within the principal town of Mataram and other worst-hit areas.
Patients lay on beds beneath wards arrange in tents, surrounded by IV stands and monitors, and were cared for by doctors in blue lab coats.
Distraught relatives crowded around their family members outside the principal clinic in Mataram as medical staff struggled to deal with tons of of patients. Many of them haven’t been served yet, although they spent the night outdoors.
“I feel restless sleeping in a tent, I can not find peace,” Nurhayati said outside certainly one of the hospitals where she took her sick 70-year-old mother.
“We really need paramedics now, we are short of staff. We also need medicines,” said Supriadi, spokesman for Mataram General Hospital.
Bali International Airport suffered terminal damage, however the runway remained intact and operations returned to normal. Representatives of the Disaster Agency informed. Lombok Airport also operated.
Indonesia, certainly one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where tectonic plates collide and most of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.
Hong Kong’s Immigration Department said it had received requests for assistance from eight Hong Kong residents whose travel was disrupted. The spokesman assured that they were protected and were supplied with help.
The Hong Kong Immigration Department urged Hong Kong residents who need assistance to call its 24-hour hotline on (852) 1868.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: the seek for earthquake survivors begins
