A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Flores Island in eastern Indonesia in the early hours of Saturday, killing at least 20 people, injuring six and leaving two others trapped under rubble. Thousands of residents fled to higher ground after the quake — among the most powerful to hit the region in decades — triggered a tsunami warning that was later lifted. The death toll is expected to rise as rescue teams work through debris across four affected towns.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) recorded the quake at 5:58am local time, with its epicentre about 68 kilometres north-northwest of Ende, a coastal city in East Nusa Tenggara province, at a shallow depth of just 10 kilometres. Three significant aftershocks followed within the first half hour, measuring magnitudes 5.9, 5.6 and 6.1, with dozens more tremors felt throughout the day. Rescue official Fathur Rahman confirmed the 20 deaths and said his teams were focused on reaching two people still buried alive in Manggarai regency. The hardest-hit area is Nagekeo regency, the district closest to the epicentre, where landslides have blocked several roads and cut off rescue teams from affected communities. Power outages have further hampered the flow of information.

Eyewitnesses described scenes of panic across the island, which is popular with tourists and is home to more than half a million people. Yohanes Babo, 56, a resident of Nagekeo who was at a market when the shaking began, described people "panicking, running here and there" before making for the hills. In Maumere — a port city roughly 2,500 kilometres east of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital — hospital patients fled the building as walls cracked. Rescuers later pulled one body from the rubble of a partly collapsed building at Maumere's port. The area is made up largely of low-rise towns and villages, meaning many structures were particularly vulnerable to severe ground shaking.

Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) initially issued a tsunami warning after residents in Nagekeo reported seeing the sea retreat — a well-known precursor to tsunami waves. Long queues of people evacuated on foot, motorbike and car. The warning was subsequently lifted, though authorities urged people not to return to damaged buildings and to continue monitoring updates. USGS estimates suggest that more than half a million people on Flores experienced very strong shaking, with several million more across the wider region feeling moderate to strong tremors.

Flores has a painful history with seismic events of this magnitude. In December 1992, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it unleashed killed more than 2,500 people on the island. Indonesia as a whole sits on the Pacific