Rescue teams in Indonesia have been searching for survivors of Saturday's major earthquake which left at least 47 people dead, BBC reported.

The magnitude 7.7 quake struck the island of Flores shortly before 05:00 (22:00 GMT on Friday) and had a depth of 15km, Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency stated.

Preliminary reports indicate hundreds of buildings have been severely damaged by the quake and the dozens of aftershocks that followed.

However, the full scale of the disaster is still unclear, and news of a second earthquake of magnitude 6.9 at the other end of Indonesia served as a reminder of why they call this region the ring of fire, according to BBC.