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A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off Flores Island in eastern Indonesia at 5:58 am local time on 15 August 2026.
The United States Geological Survey placed the focus at a depth of 10 km, about 68 km north-northwest of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara.
Indonesia's BMKG issued a tsunami warning for East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara and lifted it the same morning.
Damage was concentrated around Maumere in Sikka regency; the death toll rose to at least 47 in the days that followed.
Flores was also the site of the December 1992 earthquake and tsunami, one of Indonesia's deadliest, which killed more than 2,000 people.
An earthquake begins at the focus (or hypocentre), the point underground where rupture starts. The epicentre is simply the point on the Earth's surface directly above it. The vertical distance between them — the focal depth — is what largely decides how destructive a given magnitude turns out to be. Seismologists class quakes as shallow when the focus lies less than 70 km down, intermediate between 70 and 300 km, and deep below 300 km. The Flores event ruptured at just 10 km, which is why a magnitude 7.7 shook coastal towns hard enough to collapse buildings: the energy had very little rock to travel through before it reached the surface. Shallow offshore quakes are also the ones that generate tsunamis, because the seafloor itself is displaced and shoves the water column above it.
Simple Analogy: Striking a drum skin from an inch below stretches it violently; striking from a foot below barely moves it. Same blow, different depth, entirely different result at the surface.
Indonesia's national agency for weather and seismic monitoring; issues and lifts tsunami warnings
Indonesia's disaster response and relief coordination body; confirms casualty and damage figures
US federal science agency that monitors earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural hazards worldwide
India's tsunami warning service, run at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, strung east of Java and Bali across eastern Indonesia. Ende sits on its southern coast and Maumere on the northern coast in Sikka regency; both belong to East Nusa Tenggara province, whose capital is Kupang on Timor. The tsunami warning also covered West Nusa Tenggara — the province containing Lombok and Sumbawa — and South Sulawesi to the north across the Flores Sea.
GS Paper I > Geography > Geophysical Phenomena: Earthquakes and Tsunamis
General Awareness > World Geography and Current Events
General Awareness > Geography and Current Affairs
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General Knowledge > World Geography
The point within the Earth where an earthquake rupture begins.
The point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus.
An earthquake with a focal depth of less than 70 km; typically the most destructive for a given magnitude.
The horseshoe-shaped belt of subduction zones, volcanoes and earthquake activity around the Pacific Ocean basin, on which Indonesia sits.
An instrument that measures sea-level variation at a coast, used to confirm or rule out tsunami waves after an offshore quake.