Last updated August 28, 2018 at 11:26 am
Sections of the island have been lifted by 25 centimetres.
The map of ground deformation after the Lombok earthquake, produced by NASA’s ARIA program, based on data from the ESA Copernicus Sentinel satellites. Contour lines are 5 centimetres increments. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Copernicus/ESA
The deadly earthquake that struck the Indonesian island of Lombok earlier this week permanently deformed the island, lifting entire areas by a quarter of a metre, according to satellite mapping.
Scientists at NASA and Caltech used data from ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-1A and -1B satellites to measure the ground movement due to the 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck the island on 5 August.
By comparing measurements taken before and just after the quake, they found that some sections of the island are now up to 25 centimetres higher than they were before the quake, while other areas had dropped by as much as 15cm.
Mapping the pattern of deformation, the scientists determined that the earthquake fault slip occurred on a fault beneath the north-western part of Lombok Island, causing the uplift in that area. The slip pushed other areas of the island downwards.
The map also shows that the fault probably extends offshore to the west.
The precise measurements were captured using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) onboard the Copernicus satellites. White areas in the map are places where the radar measurement was not possible due to dense forests in the middle of the islands.
The magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck the Indonesian island on Sunday 5 August, reportedly killing nearly 350 people and leaving 20,000 homeless. The quake was felt on neighbouring island Bali, where two people died. The most severe damage occurred in north Lombok.
