91 Tewas akibat Gempa Lombok, Turis Asing Dievakuasi Basarnas
Indonesia Evacuates Tourists after Lombok Quake Kills 91
Editor : Ismail Gani
Translator : Novita Cahyadi
BADAN SAR di Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) mengevakuasi ratusan wisatawan asing dari tiga pulau wisata di Lombok yakni Gili Air, Gili Meno dan Gili Trawangan setelah gempa kuat 7 SR menewaskan sedikitnya 91 orang dan mengakibatkan ribuan rumah dan gedung rata dengan tanah.
Gempa yang dahsyat itu membuat para wisatawan asing dan penduduk ketakutan, yang terjadi sepekan setelah gempa bumi mematikan melanda Lombok dan menewaskan 17 orang.
Tim penyelamat SAR pada Senin mencari korban yang selamat di reruntuhan rumah, masjid dan sekolah yang hancur dalam bencana terakhir pada Minggu malam.
"Dampaknya luar biasa: jalan rusak, tiga jembatan juga rusak, beberapa lokasi sulit dijangkau dan kami tidak memiliki cukup personil," kata juru bicara Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
Sebuah operasi juga berlangsung Senin untuk mengevakuasi 1.200 wisatawan dari Kepulauan Gili, tiga pulau tropis kecil yang dikelilingi karang beberapa kilometer di lepas pantai barat laut Lombok yang sangat populer bagi para backpacker dan penyelam.
Margret Helgadottir, seorang turis dari Islandia, menggambarkan orang-orang berteriak ketika atap hotelnya di Gili Air runtuh ketika dilanda gempa.
"Kami hanya terdiam, untungnya kami berada di luar," katanya kepada AFP sambil menangis dari sebuah pelabuhan di Lombok di mana dia telah dievakuasi. "Semuanya mendadak gelap, sangat mengerikan."
Rekaman yang dipasang online oleh Nugroho menunjukkan ratusan orang berdesakan di pantai tengah menunggu evakuasi dari ketiga pulau wisata tersebut.
"Kami tidak dapat mengevakuasi semuanya sekaligus karena kami tidak memiliki kapasitas yang cukup di kapal," kata Muhammad Faozal, kepala biro pariwisata Nusa Tenggara Barat, kepada AFP, menambahkan dua kapal angkatan laut sedang dalam perjalanan.
"Bisa dimengerti mereka ingin meninggalkan Gili, mereka panik."
Pejabat bencana setempat mengatakan 358 wisatawan telah dievakuasi sejauh ini. Setidaknya satu orang, seorang turis Indonesia, tewas di pulau Gili sementara turis lain meninggal di Bali seperti dilansir MailOnline.
INDONESIA evacuated hundreds of tourists from popular resorts and sent rescuers fanning across the holiday island of Lombok Monday after a powerful quake killed at least 91 people and reduced thousands of buildings to rubble.
The shallow 6.9-magnitude quake sparked terror among tourists and locals alike, coming just a week after another deadly tremor surged through Lombok and killed 17 people.
Rescuers on Monday searched for survivors in the rubble of houses, mosques and schools that were destroyed in the latest disaster on Sunday evening.
"There are challenges: the roads were damaged, three bridges were also damaged, some locations are difficult to reach and we don´t have enough personnel," said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
An operation was also under way Monday to evacuate some 1,200 tourists from the Gili Islands, three tiny, coral-fringed tropical islands a few kilometres off the northwest coast of Lombok that are particularly popular with backpackers and divers.
Margret Helgadottir, a holidaymaker from Iceland, described people screaming as the roof of her hotel on Gili Air collapsed when the quake struck.
"We just froze, thankfully we were outside," she told AFP tearfully from a harbour in Lombok where she had been evacuated to. "Everything went black, it was terrible."
Footage posted online by Nugroho showed hundreds crowded onto powder-white beaches desperately waiting for transport off the normally paradise Gilis.
"We cannot evacuate all of them all at once because we don´t have enough capacity on the boats," Muhammad Faozal, the head of West Nusa Tenggara´s tourism agency, told AFP, adding two navy vessels were on their way.
"It´s understandable they want to leave the Gilis, they are panicking."
Local disaster officials said 358 tourists had been evacuated so far. At least one person, an Indonesian holidaymaker, was killed on the Gili islands while another tourist died on nearby Bali.
