Earthquake of 5.9-magnitude strikes Indonesia's Sumba island; second quake to hit island nation in less than one week

A shallow 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck off the southern coast of Indonesia’s Sumba island on Tuesday morning, the US Geological Survey said. The quake hit at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres around 40 kilometres off Sumba, an island of some 7,50,000 people.

Sumba lies some 1,600 kilometres to the south of Sulawesi island which was struck by a devastating quake and tsunami on Friday which killed more than 800 people. The Sumba earthquake comes soon after an earthquake in Palu on Sulawesi island which struck on 28 September.

On Tuesday, Indonesian rescue workers discovered the bodies of 34 students killed when a mudslide caused by Friday’s quake on Sulawesi island engulfed their church, a local rescue official said.

“A total of 34 bodies were found by the team,” Indonesia Red Cross spokeswoman Aulia Arriani told AFP, adding that 86 students had initially been reported missing from a Bible camp at the Jonooge Church Training Centre in Sigi Biromaru district.

The tsunami that ravaged the Indonesian city of Palu was outsized compared to the earthquake that spawned it, but other factors — including a long, narrow bay — conspired to create monster waves, scientists say.

Indonesia is no stranger to natural calamities and Jakarta had been keen to show it could deal with a catastrophe that has killed at least 844 people, according to the latest official count, and displaced some 59,000 more. Officials had feared that the toll would rise steeply and prepared for the worst, and declared a 14-day state of emergency.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that there were some 46,000 children and 14,000 elderly Indonesians among those in dire need — many in areas that aren’t the focus of government recovery efforts.

With inputs from agencies