Lombok earthquake: Man pulled alive from rubble of mosque on Indonesian island as search for survivors continues

'You’re safe, mister,' says soldier

A man has been pulled alive from the rubble of a mosque flattened by an earthquake that has wreaked devastation on the Indonesian island of Lombok.

More than 100 people have died and some 20,000 more made homeless by the 6.9 magnitude quake.

Thousands of residents are still waiting for aid while stranded tourists camped on beaches and in the lobbies of damaged hotels on Tuesday, two days after earthquake struck.

Rescuers were struggling to reach all the affected areas and authorities said the death toll was expected to rise.

Although officials have not said how many people they believe are buried beneath the ruins of the Jabal Nur mosque, one rescue worker said about 50 people were praying inside when it collapsed.

Video shot by a soldier shows rescuers shouting “Thank God” as a man was pulled from a space under the mosque’s collapsed roof on Monday before staggering away from the ruins supported by forces personnel.

“You’re safe, mister,” says one of the soldiers as emotion overcomes the man, clad in Islamic robes, and villagers crowd around him.

Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said many sandals were found in front of the mosque, indicating large numbers of victims, and said he hoped "a lot" of them could be saved.

A woman with a broken leg was rescued from the collapsed mosque on Monday, said villager Supri Yono. Three crushed bodies have also been retrieved.

“We’re forced to deal with broken bones in the traditional way at home, because the hospital had to deal with hundreds of other injuries,” said Budhiawan, head of Lading-Lading village.

Rescuers were using heavy duty cutting equipment on Tuesday to search through tangled mounds of rubble.

Aid organisations that were already on Lombok after it was hit a week earlier by a 6.4 quake that killed 16 people, said they were increasing humanitarian efforts.

Clean drinking water was scarce because of a recent spell of dry weather on the island, Oxfam said.

On Tuesday hundreds of tourists remained trapped on three resort islands near the epicentre of the quake, where power was cut off and hotels damaged.

British tourist Saffron Amis, who was stranded on Gili Trawangan island, said she spent a second night outdoors amid powerful aftershocks.

“We slept in a bungalow until another quake hit us at midnight and then we moved to the beach,” she said.

At Lombok’s airport, dozens of tourists slept on the floor as they waited for flights off the island.

Many hotels closed because of damage, although some allowed travellers to camp in their lobbies.

“That was my first experience with the earthquake and it was really terrible,” said Lize Reert, a Belgian woman among the several thousand who fled Gili Trawangan.

“It was a nightmare.”

Associated Press contributed to this report