A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck the Indonesian island of Flores early on Saturday morning has killed at least 68 people, injured more than 200, and displaced an estimated 13,000 residents, making it the country's deadliest seismic disaster since a 2022 earthquake that claimed hundreds of lives in West Java. The quake hit at a shallow depth of just 15 kilometres shortly before 06:00 local time, causing widespread building collapses, triggering landslides, and generating a small tsunami along parts of the coastline. The provincial governor has declared a state of emergency lasting at least 14 days.

Rescuers are still searching through rubble for survivors, while nearly 1,600 aftershocks — some reaching magnitude 6.1 — have rattled the island since Saturday, terrifying displaced residents and hampering relief efforts. Entire communities have fled to higher ground, sleeping outdoors in makeshift shelters through sweltering days and cold nights, too afraid to return to their damaged homes. Roads across the island's worst-hit districts, including Sikka and Manggarai in East Nusa Tenggara province — Indonesia's southernmost province, located east of Bali — have been severed by landslides or blocked by boulders, cutting off villages from aid. Rescuers reached Nitung Village on Palue Island, just north of Flores, only after a life-threatening two-hour overland journey, more than two days after the quake struck.

The humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly. Hospitals across the island have been heavily damaged — Ruteng Regional General Hospital lost its operating room, delivery room, pharmacy and laboratory when its roof collapsed — forcing medical staff to treat patients in emergency tents outside.