Rescue operations are underway Monday on Indonesia's Lombok island for hikers and guides who were stranded on Mount Rinjani following a powerful earthquake Sunday that caused landslides on the mountain.
The Rinjani National Park chief says at least 500 people, many of them foreigners, remain "trapped" on the mountain which is the site of Indonesia's second highest volcano.
The death toll from the earthquake has risen to 16, with 162 people injured.
Thousands of homes were damaged, but the East Lombok district was particularly hard hit.Reports say more than a thousand homes in that area alone were mangled.
The shallow, 7-kilometer-deep earthquake hit the popular tourist destination early Sunday, rousing people from their beds and sending them into the streets and open fields to avoid collapsing buildings.
Officials say the region has experienced at lest 124 aftershocks, but no tsunami was triggered.
Earthquakes are common in Indonesia because it sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin.
