Minister Shanmugam and Singapore delegation to fly back home after surviving Lombok quake

On Sunday evening, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the Indonesian island of Lombok, leaving at least 82 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

A Singapore delegation — including Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam — experienced the quake first-hand, and they were fortunate to come out unscathed.

In a Facebook post last night around 9:53pm, the minister recounted how his hotel room on the 10th floor suddenly shook violently. The walls cracked, and according to him, it was “quite impossible to stand up”.

The minister had been in Mataram, Lombok with other members of a Singapore delegation to attend a security conference — all of whom are reportedly safe. Some of the other guests of the hotel, however, weren’t so lucky.

Hearing screams, Minister Shanmugam made his way down a staircase while the building was still shaking. “Power went out for a while. Lots of cracks, fallen doors,” he said.

Lombok’s northern end has been impacted heavily, with the earthquake’s epicenter at a depth of 10 kilometers, about 27 kilometers from northeastern Lombok. Most of the victims were in the mountainous zone of Lombok, far removed from the tourist hot spots in the south and west of the island.

The death toll had been at 37, just hours before, but spiked up on Monday morning as the extent of the earthquake’s destruction was realized overnight, reported our sister site Coconuts Bali.

Flight out

In an update this morning, he thanked everyone for their thoughts and prayers. Pictures of his hotel bathroom showed how it got pretty wrecked by the quake.

According to him, the delegation tried to stay in another hotel but saw guests running out.

“So eventually we went to the airport, and waited in the airport police post. The police officers there were kind.”

While the minister was only able to grab essential items from his hotel room last night — his laptop with his government emails — he managed to retrieve other belongings this morning.

“Everyone is waiting for a flight out”.

The 7.0 earthquake comes just a week after a 6.8 was also recorded off Lombok’s northeastern coast, which killed at least 17 people and forced some 5,000 people to evacuate.