Thousands await aid after 7.7-magnitude quake kills 48 on Indonesia's Flores

On the island of Flores, Indonesia, the earth moved without warning in the early hours of a Saturday morning, and in the seconds it took to stop, 48 lives were lost and thousands more were upended. A 7.7-magnitude quake — the same force that devastated this same island in 1992 — sent residents fleeing to hillsides where they remained through the following day, held there not only by 341 aftershocks but by the weight of living memory. As governments and relief organizations mobilize, Flores finds itself once again at the intersection of geological vulnerability and human endurance, asking the a