Sawt Falasteen - Rescuers search for survivors as Indonesian quake death toll rises to 40

A second strong quake was recorded thousands of kilometres away on Sumatra island in the west of the archipelago 12 hours later, but there were no initial reports of damage or casualties there.

Rescue official Fathur Rahman said the death toll from the Flores island quake had risen to 40 by Saturday evening, with 50 people injured.

Suharyanto, the head of Indonesia's national disaster mitigation agency, said earlier that people were trapped in several buildings.

"These will be the initial targets of the disaster response teams," said Suharyanto, who, like many Indonesians, uses one name.

Two helicopters and a plane were being readied to assist in rescue operations.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen offered help from the bloc's Copernicus Earth observation satellites.

"Europe stands ready to deploy Copernicus, our eyes in the sky, to support search and rescue efforts. Indonesia, we stand with you," she wrote on X.

Dozens of houses and other buildings were damaged when the 7.7-magnitude quake hit the popular tourist island in Indonesia's east.

Suharyanto said about 2,000 people had evacuated.

"I have never felt an earthquake this big," Yulian Juita Ekalia, who lives in Ruteng city more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the epicentre, told AFP by telephone.

"It felt like we were on a trampoline; it was really scary," said the 37-year-old university lecturer, who was jolted awake at around 5:30 am (2130 GMT Friday).

"As I rushed to get outside, everything in the house fell down: the television, my son's trophies, the dish racks, suitcases on top of the wardrobes. When I got outside, my son and neighbours were already there, screaming in fear."

Rescue official Fathur told AFP the focus had shifted to locating victims who may be buried under rubble, but rescue efforts were complicated by landslides cutting off roads.

Residents in Nagekeo, an area close to the epicentre, raced for higher ground as the sea retreated early Saturday -- a possible sign of an approaching tsunami, AFP journalists witnessed.

A tsunami warning was lifted, but authorities urged people not to return to damaged buildings for fear that aftershocks could bring them down.

Hundreds remained outside hours later as dozens of aftershocks shook Flores, the strongest measured at a magnitude of 6.1.

Waves of up to 1.6 metres (5.2 feet) were measured in some coastal regions of the island, according to Indonesia's BMKG geological agency.

- Fleeing in panic -

Yulian said she had dragged her stove outside and was cooking there, fearing further tremors.

She said she saw patients being treated under emergency tents outside a nearby hospital.

Nagekeo resident Yohanes Babo, 56, said he was at a market when the earth started shaking in the early morning hours.

"The shaking was strong. Thankfully, we were already outside the house," he told AFP.

"People were panicking, running here and there. We're evacuating for the time being... and trying to get to the hills," he said.

The epicentre of the shallow quake was located just off the north coast of Flores island, US and Indonesian authorities said.

The extent of the damage is still being assessed. The area is largely rural with few high-rise buildings.

Long queues of people were seen evacuating on foot, by motorbike and car, some piled into the back of pickup trucks, after the initial tsunami warning issued by Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency.

The second, deep onland quake was measured at a magnitude of 6.9 near Pematangsiantar on Sumatra island on Saturday evening, local time.

"I actually didn't feel it at all, I only found out about the earthquake from BMKG (Indonesia's geological agency)," Armendo Sinaga, a Pematangsiantar resident, told AFP.

"Maybe because it's very deep. I don't see anyone panicking around here."

The BMKG said there was no tsunami threat from the second strong quake on Sumatra.

Indonesia experiences frequent earthquakes due to its location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Flores was struck by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in 1992, which triggered a tsunami and resulted in around 2,500 deaths.

A devastating 9.1-magnitude tremor in 2004 struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, about 170,000 of them in Indonesia, in one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.

H.Nasr--SF-PST