An earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and damaging two reservoirs and a hospital.
International Federation of Red Cross Pacific head of delegation Katie Greenwood posted on X that the Vanuatu government was reporting 14 confirmed fatalities and 200 people were treated for injuries at the main hospital in Port Vila.
People have overnight been pulled alive from the rubble of collapsed buildings, giving hope to search and rescue volunteers.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated 116,000 people had been affected by the quake.
National broadcaster VBTC showed footage of vehicles crushed under the debris of collapsed buildings and boulders strewn across a highway. Drone footage showed landslips near a shipping terminal.
On Tuesday evening, the caretaker prime minister, Charlot Salwai, declared a state of emergency and said a curfew would be imposed for seven days in the worst affected areas. International assistance had been requested.
It was a “sad and devastating time” in Port Vila, he said, expressing sympathy to families who had lost loved ones.
An official at Port Vila’s hospital told VBTC that six people had died.
Rescue efforts to find people trapped in collapsed buildings continued in the evening, a police official told local media.
“It was the most violent earthquake I’ve experienced in my 21 years living in Vanuatu and in the Pacific Islands. I’ve seen a lot of large earthquakes, never one like this,” Dan McGarry, a journalist based in Vanuatu, told Reuters.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated 116,000 people had been affected by the earthquake. It said earlier there were six unconfirmed deaths and damage to the two main water reservoirs.
The structure of the hospital in Port Vila was affected, with the operating theatre not functioning and triage tents set up outside to manage the influx of patients, it said in a statement.
Authorities were unable to communicate with the National Disaster Management Office until Tuesday evening, when Starlink satellite services were provided, it said.
The Pacific island nation is ranked as one of the world’s most at-risk countries from natural disasters and extreme weather events, including cyclones and volcanic eruptions.
Michael Thompson, an adventure tour operator based in the capital, said the quake was “bigger than anything” he’d felt in his 20 years living in Vanuatu.
“I was caught in the office with my colleague,” he told BenarNews. “When we came outside, it was just chaos everywhere. There have been a couple of buildings that have pancaked.
“You can hear noises and kind of muffled screams inside.”
Video footage taken by Thompson outside the U.S Embassy showed the bottom floor of the building in downtown Port Vila had partially collapsed. Its windows are buckled and the foundations have been turned to rubble.
“We stood there yelling out to see if there was anyone inside the building,” Thompson said. “It looks really dangerous.”
Just down the main road from the embassy building, search and rescue teams were trying to force their way into a commercial building through the tin roof, Thompson said, but at the pace they were going it would be a “24 hour operation.”
“We need help. We need medical evacuation and we need qualified rescue personnel. That’s the message,” he said.
Security camera footage from the moment the quake struck showed people scattering in panic in a garage and cars rocking on the ground.
Footage posted on social media showed buckled windows and collapsed concrete pillars on a building hosting foreign missions in the capital, including the U.S, British, French and New Zealand embassies.
A spokesperson for the U.S Embassy in Papua New Guinea said its embassy in Port Vila had sustained “considerable damage”. All personnel who were in the U.S Embassy building were able to safely evacuate, the spokesperson added.
New Zealand’s High Commission building, which is co-located with the U.S, French and British missions, had “sustained significant damage”, a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
The New Zealand Defence Force is scrambling resources to Vanuatu after a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck the island nation.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters said a Defence Force P8 aircraft is due to fly over the hardest hit areas to assess the damage and a C130 would attempt to land this afternoon carrying rescue teams, supplies and consular people.
Two Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff members remain unaccounted for.
Port Vila resident Michael Thompson said on a Facebook post that teams are working to restore telecommunications for the island.
He said a damaged fibre cable was “up and running”.
“Cable is good but server racks and power supply was damaged.”
Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ that the two missing MFAT staff members were not in the High Commission building when the quake struck.
He also said they were locally employed staff members.
“They’re part of our team and we treat them the same and they are still yet to be found.”
He said they were “desperate for information”.
Peters said the NZDF were intending to land a C130 Hercules this afternoon carrying rescue teams, supplies and consular people, if the airport opens.
“We’ve put a lot of work into it overnight and we’re set to go.”
He said a Defence Force P8 aircraft was due to fly over to check the situation.
Vanuatu Business Resilience Council chairperson Glen Craig said he expects the death toll to rise as Australia and New Zealand assistance arrives to help.
He said many of the buildings in the CBD have “pancaked” and they do not have the resources to comb through the rubble.
“We’re expecting it will be a mass fatality event because of the fact that we can’t access some of those buildings that have pancaked.”
He said he had heard reports of at least four people who died after a building collapsed onto cars, trapping the people inside.
Craig also said he had heard reports that there were 200 people seriously injured, but only 57 had been officially confirmed to him.
He said he was thrown down the steps of a hotel when the quake but was not injured.
“We got as far as the door to the pool area and then it effectively, it just almost like tossed us in the air [and] down a few steps.
“The swimming pool of the hotel just emptied out in front of you and tiles were just popping up all around you.”
He said the earthquake was a “horrible experience”.
Craig said the “key issue” at the moment was the lack of communication with the outside world because of the interchange cable failure
The quake hit the island nation not long after midday, coming into peak tourist season, when the streets of Port Vila were packed with people shopping and eating in restaurants.
Vanuatu, home to about 300,000 on its 13 main islands and many smaller ones, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because it straddles the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
The quake was recorded at a depth of 43km and centered 30km west of the capital Port-Vila, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The U.S Tsunami Warning System cancelled an initial tsunami warning for coastal communities in Vanuatu within 300km of the epicentre.
Half a dozen aftershocks hit Vanuatu following the initial quake, USGS data showed.
