The death toll from a magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck eastern Indonesia rose to 53 on Sunday as rescue teams cleared landslides and reached villages that had been cut off since the quake hit, authorities said, according to The Associated Press.
The earthquake struck the Flores region at 5:58 a.m. local time Saturday at a depth of 10 kilometers, or about 6 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Residents fled as tsunami warnings were issued and later lifted. Indonesia's meteorological agency recorded at least 235 aftershocks.
Rescuers searched six regencies across Flores for people feared buried under landslides. Efforts concentrated on Manggarai, East Manggarai and Nagekeo, the three areas that remained unreachable in the hours after the quake. Deaths were also reported in Sikka, Ngada and Ende.
Fathur Rahman, who heads the search-and-rescue office in Maumere, said crews had cleared most landslides and reopened roads to previously isolated villages, though communication failures and power outages continued to slow the search.
More than 900 homes were destroyed and 450 damaged in East Nusa Tenggara province, forcing about 5,000 people into temporary shelters, the national disaster agency said. Thirty-six people were seriously injured and 77 suffered minor injuries, Deputy Health Minister Benjamin Paulus Octavianus said.
Thousands who fled their homes Saturday spent a second night outdoors, unwilling to return to buildings left standing but structurally uncertain. Relief workers distributed rice, ready-to-eat meals, drinking water, blankets and medicine.
Landslides blocked sections of the Trans-Flores Highway, the roughly 435-mile road that links communities across the mountainous island. Authorities said restoring electricity and communications and delivering aid to remote villages were their most difficult tasks.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is among the world's most seismically active countries. Flores has suffered some of its deadliest disasters. An earthquake and tsunami along the same stretch of coast in December 1992 killed about 2,500 people.