A POWERFUL earthquake has ripped through Lombok in Indonesia, killing at least 91 people, injuring hundreds of others and damaging thousands of houses.

The death toll is set to rise further, with some affected areas yet to be reached by rescuers.

The magnitude-7 tremor struck just 10km underground about 6.46pm Jakarta time (9.46pm AEST), according to the US Geological Survey, and shook neighbouring Bali.

It’s believed no Australians have been injured in the quake.

The deadly quake was followed by two light-to-moderate secondary quakes, and nearly two dozen aftershocks.

It was the second deadly quake to hit Lombok - a popular tourist island - in a week.

No Australians are believed to have been injured in the disaster.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has told reporters in Bali that she doesn’t believe the earthquakes will impact tourism.

“We know that these earthquakes have a devastating effect on local communities,” she said.

“Australians love Indonesia. They love coming to Bali and Lombok and I feel sure that they will continue to do so. It’s a very popular tourist destination for Australians.”

The Minister said Australia stood ready to offer support to the Indonesia people if required.

Indonesia Correspondent for ABC Australia David Lipson said he is in contact with at least one Australian that is stranded.

He is hearing reports of “bodies in the streets on Gili Islands”, near the coast of northwest Lombok Island.

Indonesian National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho has posted images of evacuations in the Gili islands, where there are an estimated 1000 domestic and foreign tourists.

Both airports in Lombok are reported to be open and operating.

But tourists have begun to leave the island, some in bath robes, Lipson said in a post on Twitter.

Rachel Jean, from Perth, said she has not heard from her parents who were supposed to be on the Gili islands.

She put out an appeal for information on Twitter.

The latest quake, which triggered a brief tsunami warning, damaged buildings as far away as Bali’s Denpasar, including a department store and the airport terminal, authorities say.

A photo taken by Lipson shows ceiling panels were shaken loose.

ideo taken at a Bali hotel shows terrified guests rushing outside for safety.

Rescue officials said much of the damage had hit Lombok’s main city of Mataram, far from the main tourist spots on the south and west of the island.

Nugroho described the damage on the north of the island as “massive”.

Based on reports from West Nusa Tenggara’s disaster mitigation agency, 65 people died in North Lombok, nine in West Lombok, two in Central Lombok, four in Mataram, and two in East Lombok. Most of the victims died because they were hit by collapsing buildings.

Among the dead are a one-year-old and a 72-year-old, according to officials.

Videos posted on social media captures the panic that gripped locals as the earthquake hit.

AUSSIES: ‘WE WERE KNOCKED TO THE FLOOR’
Sydney man Jon-Paul Kennedy was asleep in his mum’s villa when it collapsed around him.

He escaped without injury and made a panicked dash to the local hospital where his terminally ill mother is being treated, but both of them ended up in the street - his mum still in her bed - after the facility was evacuated.

“We were knocked certainly to the floor,” he told Sydney radio 2GB today.

“It was a pretty violent shaking and swaying of the building. We were pretty lucky to get out. There was certainly a lot of structural damage to the building.”

For Mr Kennedy and his sick mother, it was the second terrifying quake experience in less than a fortnight.

The pair rode out Lombok’s earlier, slightly weaker earthquake on July 29 but he says the latest tremblor was much more dramatic.

“I was sleeping at mum’s villa ... it started shaking and walls collapsing around me, furniture falling, this was in the dark as there was no electricity,” he wrote on Facebook.

“I managed to run for my life ... I am with mum on the street outside hospital waiting to get back into the room as we have been evacuated.”

Hobart woman Jodie Epper, who is volunteering on Lombok with her husband and son as part of the Australian Volunteer Program, said she was putting her son to bed when the tremor hit.

“We went out into the yard, the ground was still shaking very badly,” she told the ABC.

“I saw a few particularly older women getting carried, they’d been injured by rock falling and then of course a tsunami alert happened and there was a race to get to the top of a hill. Everyone was very scared,” she said.

Ms Epper said there are broken temples, broken walls and broken houses everywhere in her village.

“We are just going down our small alleyway to our house and we are climbing over the rubble to get in there.”

Buildings and houses that were already damaged because of last week’s earthquake collapsed.

Many injured victims are being treated outside community health centres and hospitals because the buildings are damaged.

In a statement this morning, the BNPB (national disaster mitigation agency) said a team from Jakarta had arrived in North Lombok to assist the local government.

The Indonesian army will bring medical supplies, tents, medical team to Lombok.

A major focus for the day will be to find and rescue people affected by the quake.

Earlier search and rescue efforts were hampered because of power and communication blackouts.

Other earthquakes have also hit the area. As of 10pm on Sunday (local time), there had been 47 earthquakes with smaller intensity.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has warned that there is a small possibility that there will be another stronger earthquake.

Electricity was knocked out in several parts of the city and patients were evacuated from the main hospital, witnesses and officials said.

Pictures showed patients lying on their beds outside the clinic while doctors in blue scrubs attended to them.

Indonesian National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said most of the damaged buildings in the city were built with substandard construction materials.

Officials issued a tsunami warning after the quake, but it was later cancelled.

Seawater up to 13cm deep poured into two villages, Dwikorita Karnawati, head of the agency for meteorology, climatology and geophysics, told local TV.

Australia’s Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton, who is in Lombok for a counter-terrorism meeting, told Fairfax Mediathat the quake “was powerful enough to put us on the floor”.

“We were up on the 12th floor, the lights went out and we were able to evacuate,” Mr Dutton told the Australian media outlet.

“I think we were pretty lucky in the end.”

He has since tweeted to say he and other members of the Australian delegation visiting Lombok are safe.

The Sub Regional Meeting on Counter Terrorism that was scheduled to be opened in Lombok this morning has been postponed.

“All delegates that were to participate in the meeting are safe. And because of the earthquake, we decided to delay the sub regional meeting that will discuss terrorism. We ask all delegates to return back to their country,” Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto said in Lombok last night.

The quake caused light damage as far away as the Javanese city of Bandung, some 955km from Mataram, but was felt strongly on the neighbouring resort island of Bali.

One local tweeted pictures of destruction at a shopping centre in Kuta

Tweeting from Australia, Diane Burns said her son, daughter-in-law and grandson fled up a mountain to wait out tsunami warnings after their home “collapsed” and their car was damaged.

Ms Burns said her family was safe and was waiting for the all-clear to return to what’s left of their home at Senggigi in northwest Lombok.

Australian tourist Lucy Sarah Rice is on holiday in Canggu, on the neighbouring island of Bali, and told Fairfax she felt the ground begin to shake while eating dinner with friends.

“I had one foot on the ground and one foot on a chair and shaking began to increase. Then we realised the earth was moving. Across the road, at a massage parlour, we saw people run out onto the street in towels and sarongs, and that’s when we moved,” Ms Rice said.

“We stood in the middle of the road and watched the light posts shaking. It went for quite a while, increasing and peaking and then petering out again.”

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the Nine Network this morning that, at this stage, authorities had no reports of Australians being injured in the quake.

He added: “But as we have heard, its effects have been felt around Indonesia, including in Bali, where so many thousands of Australians will be right now.”

He will be contacting his Indonesian counterpart today to offer Australia’s assistance for disaster relief efforts.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said the Australian Consulate-General in Bali was working closely with local authorities to provide consular assistance to affected Australians.

“No Australians are currently known to have been seriously injured or killed,” he said.

The spokesman said the Australian Government had been providing assistance through the Indonesian Red Cross since a previous earthquake in Lombok on July 29 and would reassess its assistance in light of the latest earthquake.

CELEBS, POLITICIANS CAUGHT IN QUAKE
Australian actress Teresa Palmer is among a number of celebrities holidaying on Bali who tweeted about the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck on nearby Lombok island.

Palmer said she felt the earthquake from where she was staying in a treehouse in Bali.

She tweeted: “We felt it here in Ubud and it was VIOLENT. We are staying in a treehouse and it was swaying like crazy. Very scary. Stay safe everyone.”

She added: “It was very scary and we are in Bali, I can’t imagine how it must’ve felt to those closer to Lombok. Thinking of everyone affected.”

American model and television presenter Chrissy Teigen posted a series of brief updates on her Twitter profile.

The Lip Sync Battle host initially wrote: “Oh my god. Bali. Trembling. So long.”, before adding “Phewwwwww”, indicating that the tremors had stopped.

Teigen, 32, is with her husband, singer John Legend, and their two young children Luna and Miles.

The former Sports Illustrated model revealed the house in which they are staying is elevated from the ground, which added to the terrifying experience.

Teigen wrote: “Oh man. We are on stilts. It felt like a ride. 15 solid seconds of ‘holy s*** this is happening.”

“I very calmly walked outside saying clutching baby saying ‘I’m naked. I’m naked. I’m naked’. Like a naked zombie.”

Teigen then confirmed that aftershocks from the quake had started to hit the area.

She wrote: “I’m either still trembling or these little quakes won’t stop. I’m trying to be normal here!”.

‘IMPOSSIBLE TO STAND UP’
Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, who was in Lombok for a security conference when the earthquake struck, described on Facebook how his hotel room on the 10th floor shook violently.

“Walls cracked, it was quite impossible to stand up,” he said.

Witnesses described how people could be heard screaming as locals and tourists ran onto the road.

Agung Widodo, a resident of Bali’s main town of Denpasar, said he felt two strong tremors.

“The first one lasted quite a while, the second one was only about two-to-five seconds. The first one was the bigger one,” he told AFP.

Bali’s international airport suffered damage to its terminal but the runway was unaffected and operations had returned to normal, disaster agency officials said.

Facilities at Lombok’s main airport were also unaffected, although passengers were briefly evacuated from the main terminal.

Early reports suggest the quake wrecked buildings in several districts across Bali.

Indonesia, one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth, straddles the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide and many of the world’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur.

In 2004 a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.3 undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in western Indonesia killed 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.