Flores earthquake leaves 68 dead and 12,800 displaced across eastern Indonesia

Casualties and regional toll

On 15 August 2026 at 04:58 local time, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Flores Island at a depth of 15 kilometres according to the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), while the United States Geological Survey recorded depth at 10 kilometres. By the afternoon of 17 August, Indonesia's national disaster management agency (BNPB) reported that 68 people had died and 213 were injured, revising earlier preliminary death counts of 53 and 54. Fatalities occurred across seven regencies, with Manggarai recording 26 deaths and Manggarai Timur recording 24. Nagekeo confirmed eight deaths, Sikka reported four, while Ende, Manggarai Barat, and Ngada each registered two fatalities. Emergency rescue workers confirmed that no people remained unaccounted for under rubble across the island.

Emergency shelters and aid shortages

Displacement figures reached 12,800 people on Monday, rising from an earlier estimate of 5,000, according to BNPB spokesman Berton Suar Pelita Panjaitan. Displaced residents sought shelter in government offices, schools, and police stations, or erected makeshift tents using tarpaulins and poles. Landslides and broken roads cut off transit routes across several districts, including Nagekeo, delaying shipments of clean drinking water, food, and medical supplies. Residents reported illnesses such as diarrhea among children in crowded camps, while families subsisted on plain rice without side dishes.

We fled with nothing. Just the clothes on our backs.

Hospital operations and aftershocks

Flores experienced almost 1,600 aftershocks following the initial weekend earthquake, including a magnitude 5.6 tremor on Monday morning that deterred residents from entering standing structures. Due to structural damage inside hospitals and clinics across the island, medical personnel relocated treatment wards to outdoor emergency tents. Staff at Lalang Health Centre treated dozens of incoming wounded before referring critical patients to the regional hospital in Ruteng, located four hours away. In the northern port city of Maumere, search teams retrieved 20 bodies and rescued two people trapped in rubble.

Relief access and regional seismic history

Rescue teams reached the isolated settlement of Nitung in Sikka regency late on Sunday after two days of clearing landslides and rockfalls. Police officials on site described Nitung as the most severely damaged village in the district. The earthquake severely damaged at least 914 houses, partially destroyed hundreds more, and affected public buildings across East Nusa Tenggara. Initial tsunami warnings for East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, and Southeast Sulawesi were cancelled after observed coastal waves stayed below one metre. The disaster is the deadliest earthquake in Indonesia since the 2022 West Java tremor, on an island where a 1992 magnitude 7.7 earthquake and tsunami previously caused 2,500 deaths.