Powerful quake off Indonesia kills one, sparks mass evacuations

A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck off Flores island in eastern Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least one person and sending thousands fleeing.

Residents in Nagekeo regency, the area closest to the epicentre, raced for higher ground as the sea retreated -- a possible sign of an approaching tsunami, AFP journalists saw.

The warning was later lifted but people were warned not to return to damaged buildings for fear that aftershocks may bring them down.

Yohanes Babo, 56, a resident of Nagekeo, said he was at a market when the earth started shaking.

"The shaking was strong. Thankfully, we were already outside the house," he told AFP.

"People were panicking, running here and there. We're evacuating for the time being... and trying to get to the hills," he said, adding: "My family is safe. No one was harmed."

The epicentre of the shallow quake was located off the north coast of the island, about 68 kilometres (42 miles) northwest of the coastal town of Ende, US and Indonesian authorities said.

The jolt was followed by strong aftershocks in the same area, including one with a magnitude of 6.1.

Emergency officials had initially reported two fatalities, but later corrected the toll to one dead and four injured.

The full extent of the damage is still being assessed, and television footage showed rescuers combing through rubble in Maumere, a town on the north coast of Flores island, in search of trapped survivors.

Lukas Lotar, a resident of Maumere -- about 2,500 kilometres (1,553 miles) east of Jakarta -- said the earth "suddenly started to shake and I panicked".

"Patients also fled the hospital, the jolt was big. I saw some walls were cracked," Lotar, a hospital customer service official told AFP.

The stricken area is comprised mostly of towns and villages with few to no high-rise buildings.

Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) initially warned of possible tsunami waves following the quake and urged people to get to higher ground.

An alert was initially issued for waves ranging from 0.5 metres to three metres (1.6 to 9.8 feet), but was later lifted.

"We have ended (the tsunami warning) but we will keep monitoring the sea level," said Wijayanto, who like many Indonesians, goes by one name.

Indonesia and neighbouring countries experience frequent earthquakes due to their location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire" -- an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Flores was struck by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in 1992, which triggered a tsunami and resulted in around 2,500 deaths.

Among Indonesia's history of deadly quakes is a devastating 9.1-magnitude tremor in 2004 that struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, including about 170,000 in Indonesia.

The Boxing Day tragedy was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.

In 2018, a powerful quake shook the island of Lombok and several more tremors followed over the next couple of weeks, killing more than 550 people on the holiday island and neighbouring Sumbawa.

Later that year, a 7.5-magnitude quake and a subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi island left more than 4,300 people dead or missing.