KUPANG, INDONESIA – A man who attacked a group of school children with a knife in eastern Indonesia on Tuesday has died after an angry mob beat him to death inside his jail cell, police said.

Seven children were injured after a man went on a stabbing spree inside a primary school on Savu, a small island in East Nusa Tenggara province.

The 32-year-old attacker tried to flee but was caught and taken to a police station, said local officer Silfeston, who like many Indonesians goes by just one name.

But once there hundreds of locals, furious at news of the attack, rushed to the station, forcing their way past police and into the cell where the man was being held.

“The suspect was tortured by the mob and died,” Silfeston said.

Footage aired on local broadcasters showed dozens of shouting men pushing past police and climbing over walls at the station.

The injured children, aged eight to 11, were taken to hospital for treatment, Silfeston said.

Police are still investigating the mob killing and the motivation behind the knife attack.

Savu is home to around 100,000 people.

Jakarta – The number of people left homeless after an earthquake struck western Indonesia has soared to nearly 84,000, leaving authorities struggling to care for the victims, an official said Tuesday.

The shallow quake last week killed more than 100 people and injured many more when it struck Aceh province, one of the areas worst affected by the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

Thousands of homes, businesses and mosques were levelled by the 6.5-magnitude quake, which struck at dawn as many in the predominantly Muslim region were preparing to pray.

Hospitals and field clinics were quickly overwhelmed by the injured, and kitchens and shelters swamped by people left with nothing.

As the scale of the disaster continues to unfold, the number of those displaced has nearly doubled to more than 83,800, said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

“People are afraid and worried about aftershocks, so feel more comfortable in the evacuation shelters,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

“The problem with water supply at some of evacuation points is not good,” he added, saying wells had been left dry since the quake.

Aid has begun reaching the worst-hit areas but there was still an urgent need for more food, clothing and sanitation products, the agency said.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited the province last week, pledging to rebuild the area’s devastated communities.

The archipelago nation experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide.

A huge undersea earthquake in 2004 triggered a tsunami that engulfed several countries around the Indian Ocean, killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia alone, the vast majority in Aceh.

The province lies on the northern tip of Sumatra island, which is particularly prone to quakes.

In June, a 6.5-magnitude quake struck off the west of Sumatra, damaging scores of buildings and injuring eight people.

BANGKOK – Thailand’s new King Maha Vajiralongkorn will pardon or commute the sentences of up to 150,000 prison inmates, including some jailed under one of the world’s toughest laws against royal insult, officials said on Tuesday.

King Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne on Dec. 1 after the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, on Oct. 13. “This is the first opportunity since his majesty’s ascension to show his mercy,” the Royal Gazette said in a statement, announcing that 150,000 inmates could be eligible for release or to have sentences cut, under the pardon.

Officials do not have a figure for the number of inmates who will benefit from the pardon, with decisions to be made by different prisons depending on factors including the inmate’s age, how much of the sentence has been served and behaviour.

Prisoners jailed for insulting the monarchy and drug offences will be eligible, said Kobkiat Kasivivat, director general of the Department of Corrections. “Prisoners convicted of 112 and prisoners convicted of drug offences will be included for consideration for release or commuting of sentence,” Kobkiat told Reuters, referring to the royal insult law by its article number in the criminal code.

The government has not released a figure for the number of people who are in jail for royal insult but there have been more than 80 prosecutions under the law since mid-2014, according to figures from the legal monitoring group iLaw. “The inmates will be looked at on a case by case basis at each individual corrections facility,” Chanchao Chaiyanukit, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, told Reuters.

Those convicted of murder and rape will not be eligible for release or to have sentences cut, officials said.

Thailand’s prison population has soared in recent years, largely because of tough drug laws.

Corrections Department figures for July showed a prison population of 321,347 in Thailand, with about 70 per cent jailed for drugs offences.

Japan is postponing a summit with China and South Korea, the government said Tuesday, after the impeachment of South Korean President President Park Geun-Hye.

The Asian powers were planning to hold an annual trilateral gathering this month in Japan, which is the rotating chair.

South Korea’s parliament voted Friday to impeach Park, who is engulfed in a scandal over her friendship with a long-time confidante charged with meddling in state affairs.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, while not directly mentioning Park’s impeachment, said “various factors” were behind the decision.

“We decided to re-arrange it and hold the summit at an appropriate time next year,” he told reporters after a regular cabinet meeting.

South Korea’s foreign ministry confirmed the postponement, with a spokesperson in Seoul saying only that the three sides “had difficulty setting a date this year”.

Park has been relieved of official duties as president and is awaiting a decision by the country’s Constitutional Court – a process that could take months – on whether she will have to permanently step down.

She has been replaced in the interim by Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-Ahn.

Leaders of the three countries met in November last year in South Korea, marking the first trilateral summit since 2012.

The meetings had been on ice due largely to Tokyo’s often thorny relations with Beijing and Seoul over territorial issues and history.