More than 70,000 homeless after deadly Lombok quake

More than 70,000 people have been left homeless in the deadly earthquake that hit Lombok island, forced to sleep in makeshift shelters and lacking food, medicine and clean water, authorities said today.

The shallow 6.9-magnitude quake killed at least 105 people and triggered panic among locals and tourists on Lombok on Sunday, just a week after another tremor surged through the holiday island and killed 17.

Some 236 people have been severely injured in the latest quake, with tens of thousands of homes damaged, and authorities have appealed for more medical personnel and basic supplies.

"The efforts to evacuate people have been intensified but there are still a lot of problems on the ground," national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said today.

"The number of victims keep rising. More than 70,000 people have been evacuated and tens of thousands of houses have collapsed."
"The scale of this quake is massive for us here in West Nusa Tenggara, this is our first experience." - 'Destruction almost 100 per cent' -