Lombok earthquake: Bali tragedy sees injured with CARDBOARD splints outside hospital
A HEAVILY damaged hospital has had to patch up casualties using cardboard as medical supplies run short after the second major earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok in a week left at least 98 people dead.
Indonesia Earthquake: Foreign tourists await evacuation
A boy with a heavily bandaged leg wailed in pain, an elderly man wore a splint improvised from cardboard strips of cardboard on a broken arm, and some hurt by falling debris still had dried blood on their faces.
No foreigners are yet listed among those who have lost their lives but the country’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) expects the death toll to rise once the rubble of more than 13,000 flattened and damaged houses are cleared away.
So far, a total of 236 people are reported to have been injured, according to Reuters.
Power and communications were severed in some areas, with landslides and a collapsed bridge blocking access to areas around the quake epicentre in the north.
The military said it would send a ship with medical aid, supplies and logistical support.
In a message on social network Twitter, the Indonesian Red Cross said it helped a woman give birth at a health post after the quake.
One of the names she gave the baby boy was 'Gempa', which means earthquake.
Lombok was hit on July 29 by a 6.4 magnitude quake that killed 17 people and briefly stranded several hundred trekkers on the slopes of a volcano.
BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG), said more than 120 aftershocks were recorded after yesterday’s tremor, which was five times more powerful than last week’s quake.
He added that it was powerful enough to be felt on the neighbouring island of Bali, where two people also died.
Indonesia sits on the geologically active Pacific Ring of Fire and is regularly hit by earthquakes.
In 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami killed 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.
Mr Nugroho said emergency units in its hospitals were overflowing and some patients were being treated in parking lots.
He added that more than 20,000 people had been displaced, including residents of a northern village called Mentigi, who fled to nearby hills.
Blue tarpaulins dotted the landscape as people prepared to spend the nights outdoors because of aftershocks or because their homes were destroyed.
A 50-year-old villager sheltering with his wife and children, who gave his name only as Marhun, said: “We are getting some aid from volunteers, but we don't have proper tents yet.”
Officials said more than 2,000 people had been evacuated from the three Gili islands off the northwest coast of Lombok, where fears of a tsunami spread among tourists.
Michelle Thompson, an American holidaying on one of the Gilis, described a "scramble" to get on boats leaving for the main island during which her husband was injured.
She said: "People were just throwing their suitcases on board and I had to struggle to get my husband on, because he was bleeding.”