Indonesia quake lifts Lombok island by 25cm hinh anh 1Houses collapse in the quake in Sajang village on Lombok Island, Indonesia (Source: Xinhua/VNA)
 
Hanoi (VNA) – US scientists said on August 10 that successive strong earthquakes have lifted Lombok island, West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia, they struck by 25cm.

Using satellite images of Lombok from the days following the August 5 quake, scientists from NASA and the California Institute of Technology made a ground deformation map and measured changes in the island's surface.

In the northwest of the island near the epicentre, the rupturing fault-line lifted the earth by a quarter of a meter. In other places, it dropped by 5-15 centimeters (2-6 inches).

Lombok, a popular and less developed tourist destination, was hit by three strong quakes in nearly a week and has endured more than 500 aftershocks, leaving about 350 dead and hundreds of thousands of others homeless.

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people of different nationalities.-VNA
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