“All the hotel guests were running, so I did too. People filled the streets,” Michelle Lindsay, an Australian tourist on Bali, told Reuters. “A lot of officials were urging people not to panic.”
Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism released a statement saying no tourists had been “injured or impacted” by the quake.
The Indonesia Red Cross reported that four of its volunteers were injured and transported to a hospital. Red Cross workers moved people to higher ground and advised people in coastal areas to leave due to tsunami concerns, said agency spokesman Arifin M Hadi.
Hospital patients had been moved to outdoor areas as a precaution, Haji Rum, head of the West Nusa Tenggara Disaster Management Agency, said in an interview on Indonesia’s Metro TV. There are parts of Lombok without power, he said.
Landline phone and cellphone services were reported down in Tanjung, the Lombok town nearest to the epicenter.
Images posted on social media showed damage at the Bali airport, including large ceiling tiles hanging loose or fallen to the ground. Flights at the Bali and Lombok airports were continuing.
The Indonesian archipelago, where Lombok and Bali are located, is part of the
Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000-kilometer (25,000-mile) area of intense seismic and volcanic activity where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. The area stretches from Japan and Indonesia on one side of the Pacific Ocean all the way across to California on the other.
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