A powerful magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck off the northern coast of Indonesia’s Flores Island early Saturday morning, killing at least two people, bringing down buildings, and triggering widespread panic across coastal settlements. According to data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the shallow undersea tremor hit at 5:58 AM local time at a depth of just 10 kilometres, with its epicentre situated roughly 68 kilometres north-northwest of the town of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province.
The violent shaking reverberated across multiple island provinces, quickly followed by strong aftershocks reaching up to magnitude 6.1 that sent terrified residents fleeing into open fields and roadways. Following the initial shock, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) issued immediate tsunami warnings across coastal belts in East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, and Sulawesi, urging shoreline residents to move at least two kilometres inland or head for higher ground.
Although authorities later stood down the tsunami alert after coastal tide gauges confirmed no destructive wave activity, the tremor itself inflicted heavy structural damage. In Maumere, part of a passenger waiting terminal at the local port collapsed, killing two people, while videos shared across social media showed fractured roads, fallen brick walls, and debris scattered across residential neighbourhoods.
The morning quake caused chaos at the St. Peter Major Seminary in Ritapiret, Sikka regency, where students and nuns attending morning prayers scrambled to escape as an assembly hall roof caved in, leaving a priest injured with a broken leg after jumping from a second-floor balcony. Across Flores, medical teams rushed patients out of shaky hospital wards into open courtyards, setting up makeshift treatment areas with beds, oxygen tanks, and IV drips on hospital lawns.
Search and rescue personnel deployed by the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) continue to comb through remote hillside villages to assess the full toll. Indonesia sits directly along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of intense tectonic friction where continental plates regularly collide, making severe earthquakes and volcanic eruptions a frequent hazard across the archipelago.