[DAWN] The Indonesian island of Lombok was shaken by a third big earthquake in little more than a week on Thursday as an official said the corpse count from an earlier quake had topped 220.The strong aftershock, measured at magnitude 5.9 by the US Geological Survey, caused panic and damage. It was centered in the northwest of the island and didn’t have the potential to cause a tsunami, Indonesia’s geological agency said.
Videos showed rubble strewn across streets and clouds of dust enveloping buildings. In northern Lombok, some people leaped from their vehicles on traffic jammed roads while an elderly woman standing in the back of a pickup truck wailed "God is Great". The aftershock had caused more "trauma", said national disaster agency front man Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
Nyoman Sidekarya, chief of the provincial search and rescue agency that covers Lombok, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that the corpse count from Sunday’s magnitude 7.0 quake is now 227.
Several agencies have been releasing higher corpse count figures than the 131 announced on Wednesday by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, which has a coordinating role in disaster relief. The agency says it has not verified these other figures but expects the toll to climb.