Earthquake hits the island in Indonesia

Jakarta.- A magnitude 6.4 earthquake shook the Indonesian island of Lombok on Sunday morning. In its first report, the country's disaster mitigation agency reported at least three dead and 12 wounded, in addition to dozens of collapsed buildings.

The spokesman of the National Agency for Disaster Management, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said in a statement that had already been 43 aftershocks, the strongest magnitude 5.7 Richter, and that the tremor of land also affected the neighboring islands of Bali and Sumbawa.

The United States Geological Survey reported that the earthquake had epicenter in southwestern Lelongken, at a depth of 7.5 kilometers. The three victims were registered on the north and east side of the island, according to Nugroho, and lost their lives by falling pieces of concrete. Lombok is popular with foreign tourists and is 100 kilometers from paradise Bali.

The telluric movement occurred at 06:47 local time, when people were still sleeping. Many houses were damaged.

"We jumped off our beds to prevent something from falling on our heads," said Jean-Paul Volckaert, who was sleeping at the Puncak hotel, when the earthquake woke him up.

Social networks revealed damage of varying magnitude and showed injuries. Apparently, a hospital has been evicted. The popular Mount Rinjani National Park is another of the affected places, for example images.

Residents of North Lombok, a town about 22 kilometers northeast of the epicenter, felt a sharp shake for a few seconds. 19659002] "It was very loud, suddenly, I felt the jolt get up, everyone panicked and we all ran," he told AFP Zulkifli. Then electricity in the city was cut off and people had trouble leaving their homes. And then, the aftershocks began

The archipelago of Indonesia, consisting of thousands of islands, lies in the area called the Pacific Ring of Fire, where there is intense activity seismic.

earthquakes, most of which are harmless, but this region follows in detail any seismic activity because of the risk of tsunami.

In 2004, a tsunami caused by a magnitude 9.3 earthquake on the coast of Sumatra, west of Indonesia, killed 220,000 people in several coastal states. Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in this country.