Rescuers race to find survivors of the Vanuatu earthquake

Rescuers in Vanuatu race to find survivors trapped in buildings, the day after one Earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 hit the capital Port Vila, killing 14 people.

At least 200 people were injured in Tuesday’s quake, with many of the casualties centered around a handful of buildings in the city center.

A witness, who was inside the tallest building in Vanuatu when the quake struck, told the BBC that he and his wife had “sprinted” outside, adding that “if it had gone on for another 10 seconds, I wouldn’t be talking to you today”.

A seven-day state of emergency has been declared to restrict public movement while rescue operations are underway, police said.

Glen Craig, chairman of the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council, told the BBC he had been in “good spirits” and enjoying Christmas celebrations with his wife on Tuesday when the quake struck – catching them completely off guard.

“We (in Vanuatu) are used to disasters… you can usually hear the earthquakes coming; you hear like a boom or a deep roar. But this one we had no warning at all – there was just a sudden boom. This was next level, it felt like something that comes once in a generation.”

At least 10 buildings in Port Vila suffered “major structural damage”, the government’s disaster management office said. Tremors from the earthquake also knocked out power and cellphone services.

Craig said a building that housed several embassies, including the US Embassy and the British High Commission, was particularly affected.

“That building just pancaked,” he said. “There were about seven or eight buildings (in that area) that suffered catastrophic failure, and I would expect the number of casualties to rise.”

A flurry of aftershocks were also reported overnight.

“Lots and lots of aftershocks all night,” Australian Caroline Bird, who manages a resort in Port Vila, told ABC News. “Probably (can’t) even count how many.”

Six victims died as a result of a landslide, while four others had been in a collapsed building at the time of the earthquake. The death toll is expected to rise further.

Two of the 14 victims were Chinese nationals, Chinese ambassador to Vanuatu Li Minggang told state media.

Pictures shared by Vanuatu police on Facebook showed rescuers sifting through rubble by hand and crawling under the floors of collapsed buildings.

Michael Thompson was among those who worked through the night to search for survivors.

He said in a Facebook post that three people had been rescued from a building overnight, but later told news agencies that one of them had subsequently died.

Thompson added that rescue teams urgently needed jackhammers, excavators and cold drinking water, adding that many rescuers had “worked through the night”.

It is estimated that 116,000 people may be affected by the worst consequences of the earthquake, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

According to Mr. Craig, however, the majority of the damage was limited to a specific area. The outskirts of Vanuatu were largely unscathed, as were most people living outside the capital, he added.

“We are used to having hurricanes that cause problems like food shortages, affecting housing. This time there is none of that,” he said.

“But we don’t normally have that many fatalities from natural disasters – so fatalities at this level, that’s not normal for us.”

Neighboring Australia will send teams to help with search and rescue efforts, while the US and France have also pledged help.

The earthquake struck at 12:47 local time (01:47 GMT) on Tuesday and triggered a brief tsunami warning.

Vanuatu, a low-lying archipelago of about 80 islands in the South Pacific, lies west of Fiji and thousands of kilometers east of northern Australia.

Vanuatu is located in a seismically active area and is susceptible to frequent large earthquakes and other natural disasters.

“We had Covid, then we had three cyclones last year. So this is really the last thing we needed,” said Mr. Craig. “But I think there will be some semblance of normalcy on Thursday.

“Tomorrow the banks open, we need some apparatus from Australia for the internet to come back, which we’ll get soon, and the power will come back in a few days. So we’re suffering now, but we’ll get past it.”