World News
Flores earthquake toll reaches one hundred and the damaged house count passes 73,000
By Staff Writer | 25 August 2026
Nine days after the magnitude 7.7 rupture, Indonesia's disaster agency puts the dead at 100, the injured still in care at 1,603 and the displaced at 180,327.
The death toll from the earthquake that struck Flores on 15 August has reached 100, more than double the figure recorded in the first two days, and the count of damaged houses now stands at 73,818. Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency gave the numbers at an online press conference on Monday.
Its head, Lieutenant General Suharyanto, said the total was an accumulated one and included people who were severely injured in the shock itself, were treated in health facilities and could not be saved. The agency recorded 48 deaths in the first two days. The figure by regency is Manggarai 38, East Manggarai at least 34, Nagekeo 13, Sikka 6, Ngada 5, Ende 3 and West Manggarai 1.
The building damage, sorted into three grades
The house count is the number that will decide what the next two years cost. Of the 73,818 dwellings recorded as damaged, the agency puts 23,276 in the heavily damaged grade, 17,563 in the moderately damaged grade and 32,979 in the lightly damaged grade. A further 1,915 public buildings are recorded as damaged, among them schools, places of worship and government offices.
Those grades are not descriptive. They set the payment.
The government is preparing a housing repair assistance scheme for affected residents. For houses classified as lightly damaged, BNPB will provide Rp15 million, while moderately damaged will receive Rp30 million
Lieutenant General Suharyanto, head of Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency
Households whose homes fall in the heavy grade are to be given permanent replacement housing, and in the meantime may either take a housing waiting fund of Rp600,000, put at about 33.65 US dollars on the record that carries it, to rent somewhere, or move into temporary housing built for them. Which of the three grades a house lands in therefore decides whether a family receives a repair grant, a rent allowance or a new building.
Grading damage is a survey exercise with a payment attached to every line. Anyone who has run a condition survey against a compensation schedule will recognise both the pressure on the surveyor and the reason the count keeps moving.
Suharyanto said the data were being assembled from the bottom up, starting at neighbourhood level and passing through villages, subdistricts and regencies, and that the process is being verified as it goes to prevent duplicate records and mismatched damage grades. That is why the totals have risen for nine days and are likely to rise again.
Aftershocks, rumours and the camps nobody planned for
The meteorology and geophysics agency recorded 6,409 aftershocks in the eight days after the main shock, ranging from magnitude 1.1 to 6.2. Residents felt 139 of them and 33 of those exceeded magnitude 5.0. The agency expects the sequence to continue for up to four weeks.
False tsunami warnings circulating locally have pushed some survivors into makeshift camps in remote spots, beyond the places relief teams were sent to. Suharyanto dismissed the rumours, said the geophysics agency issues daily updates and that no aftershock stronger than the initial tremor had been detected, and said aid was being taken out to the self made camps as well as the organised ones.
Nine days after the earthquake, President Prabowo Subianto had not visited the affected area. He held a meeting on Monday at his residence in Hambalang, in Bogor, West Java, with members of the cabinet and military leaders on the continuing response and on reconstruction.
The government continues to ensure that the support ordered reaches affected areas and supports the community's recovery process
Teddy Indra Wijaya, Cabinet Secretary of Indonesia
The same meeting covered the forest and land fires burning in Kalimantan, which is the other emergency the country is running at the moment and a longer one.