The 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck off Indonesia’s Flores Island early Saturday has produced confirmed tsunami waves, collapsed a port terminal, and damaged buildings across at least five districts, though no deaths or injuries have been reported as of this writing despite a rupture nearly identical in size to the 1992 Flores quake that killed more than 2,500 people. The quake hit at 05:58 WITA (21:58 UTC Friday) at a depth of 10 kilometers, with its epicenter 68 kilometers north-northwest of Ende on a shallow east-striking thrust fault that ruptured an area of roughly 90 by 45 kilometers, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Real Tsunami Waves Recorded, Not Just a Warning
Unlike many tsunami alerts that are lifted without a wave ever arriving, this one produced measurable water surges. Indonesia’s meteorology agency BMKG recorded a maximum wave height of 94 centimeters at Maurole district in Ende Regency, close to the epicenter, with a smaller 30-centimeter surge reaching Labuan Bajo further west. The tsunami warning covered 22 areas across East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, and Southeast Sulawesi, and authorities ordered coastal residents to move to higher ground while the alert remained active.
Buildings Down in Five Districts
The clearest structural damage is a collapsed passenger terminal at the port in Maumere, a key transit hub on Flores. In Ruteng, further west, the ceiling partially collapsed at Frans Sales Lega Airport and officials reported many other damaged buildings including a university campus structure. East Manggarai Regency and the town of Borong also reported damaged buildings, collapsed homes in more remote areas, and at least one damaged bridge. In Mbay, Nagekeo Regency, five to six homes were damaged. Shaking was strong enough to be felt for roughly two minutes in Makassar, a city of more than 1.4 million people some 400 kilometers from the epicenter.
Aftershock Sequence Still Active
At least seven aftershocks above magnitude 5.0 have followed the mainshock, the strongest a magnitude 6.1 recorded at 22:28 UTC, roughly half an hour after the initial rupture. Two more, magnitude 5.9 and 5.6, struck within the same half-hour window. BMKG and the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre have both warned residents to expect continued aftershocks in the coming days, some potentially strong enough to cause further damage to already-weakened structures. A smaller magnitude 4.6 tremor on August 2 in the same area is now considered a possible foreshock.
Widespread Shaking, No Confirmed Casualties
BMKG estimated that 56,000 people experienced severe shaking, 420,000 felt very strong tremors, and more than 1.1 million experienced strong shaking across the region. The USGS separately estimated that over 500,000 people on Flores Island alone were exposed to very strong or severe shaking, capable of moderate damage in well-built structures and serious damage in poorly built ones. Despite that exposure and the confirmed building damage, Indonesia’s national disaster agency BNPB had not released any casualty figures as of this writing, and no deaths or injuries have been confirmed by local officials in the affected districts. The USGS’s automated PAGER system had flagged a yellow alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses before the full damage picture emerged, indicating some casualties remained possible.
The earthquake struck as Indonesia faces an unusually dry year, with BMKG recording the driest July since 1991 across parts of the archipelago and a nearly 600% surge in wildfire hotspots between June and July, compounding the strain on emergency resources already responding to the quake.
Sources: U.S. Geological Survey; European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre; BMKG; Wikipedia (2026 East Nusa Tenggara earthquake); The Weather Network; The Guardian; CNN.
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