An aftershock of magnitude 5.9 rocked the island of Lombak on Thursday. The island is still reeling from the effects of a 6.9 magnitude earthquake which devastated the island on Sunday.
Tens of thousands of people were left homeless on the island after Sunday's quake. Rescuers are racing against time and aftershocks to save survivors from the rubble they are trapped under.
Meanwhile, a confusion over the death toll has emerged as the government-run news agency Antara reported that the death toll from the Lombok earthquake has risen to 347. The firgure reported on Wednesday had said that 131 people had died.
The number is expected to keep rising as rescuers stuggle to find survivors from Sunday's quake. The confusion is due to the different death tolls issued by the officials and organisations including the military, the governor of the province that includes Lombok, the national search and rescue agency and the regent of North Lombok.
The national disaster agency announced today that they believed the death toll to be 164 with at least 1,400 people seriously injured and 156,000 displaced.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for the national disaster agency, has repeatedly said the number of deaths will increase. However, he said it was not uncommon for confusion on exact deaths tolls to arise during an emergency, as has occurred in previous natural disasters.
Sunday’s earthquake triggered at least 230 aftershocks, which were expected to continue for the next two weeks.