There were also concerns over the whereabouts of hundreds of people preparing for a beach festival due to start Friday evening, the disaster agency said. The shallow 7.5 magnitude tremor was more powerful than a series of quakes that killed hundreds on the Indonesian island of Lombok in July and August. A key access road had been badly damaged and was blocked by landslides, the disaster agency said. That Boxing Day quake triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, including 168,000 in Indonesia. In 2010, about 430 were killed when a huge quake sparked a tsunami off the coast of Sumatra, while more than 600 were killed in a quake-tsunami disaster on Java island.

Source: Manila Times September 29, 2018 07:40 UTC