Vanuatu Earthquake: Rescue Efforts Underway as Death Toll Reaches 14

Emergency teams in Vanuatu are urgently searching for individuals caught within structures, following a 7.3-magnitude earthquake that hit Port Vila, the capital, yesterday. The seismic event resulted in 14 fatalities and left a minimum of 200 injured on Tuesday, with a significant portion of these casualties concentrated in a few central city buildings. A person present in Vanuatu’s tallest structure during the earthquake informed the BBC that he and his spouse “sprinted” outdoors, stating, “if it had gone on another 10 seconds, I wouldn’t be talking to you today”. Police have announced a seven-day state of emergency, imposed to restrict public movement during ongoing rescue efforts. Glen Craig, who chairs the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council, shared with the BBC that he and his wife were in “good spirits” and celebrating Christmas on Tuesday when the earthquake occurred, surprising them entirely. He remarked, “We [in Vanuatu] are used to disasters… you can usually hear the earthquakes coming; you hear like a rumble 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.” The government’s disaster management office reported that a minimum of 10 buildings in Port Vila suffered “major structural damage.” The seismic tremors also disrupted electricity and mobile communication services. Mr. Craig noted that a specific building, home to multiple embassies such as the US Embassy and the British High Commission, experienced significant impact. He described, “That building just pancaked,” and added, “There were about seven or eight buildings [in that area] that suffered catastrophic failure, and I’d expect the number of casualties to rise.” Numerous aftershocks were also documented during the night. Caroline Bird, an Australian who manages a resort in Port Vila, informed ABC News of “Loads and loads of aftershocks throughout the night,” adding, “Probably [can’t] even count how many.” Six fatalities resulted from a landslide, and four additional individuals perished in a building that collapsed during the earthquake. The total number of deaths is anticipated to increase. Chinese Ambassador to Vanuatu Li Minggang informed state media that two of the 14 deceased were Chinese nationals. Images posted by Vanuatu Police on Facebook depicted rescue personnel manually sifting through debris and navigating beneath the floors of collapsed structures. Michael Thompson was one of the individuals engaged in overnight efforts to locate survivors. He stated in a Facebook post that three people had been saved from a building during the night, though he later informed news agencies that one of these individuals subsequently passed away. Mr. Thompson also mentioned that rescue teams urgently required jackhammers, excavators, and cold drinking water, noting that numerous rescuers had “worked through the night”. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs indicated that approximately 116,000 individuals might experience the most severe consequences of the earthquake. Nevertheless, Mr. Craig stated that the majority of the destruction was confined to a specific zone. He further noted that Vanuatu’s peripheral areas remained mostly unaffected, as did most residents residing beyond the capital. He commented, “We are used to having hurricanes which cause issues like food scarcity, affect housing. This time there’s none of that,” adding, “But we normally don’t have this many fatalities as a result of natural disasters – so fatalities at this level, that’s not normal for us.” Australia, a neighboring nation, will dispatch teams to support the search and rescue operation, and both the US and France have committed to providing assistance. The earthquake occurred at 12:47 local time (01:47 GMT) on Tuesday, prompting a short-lived tsunami alert. Vanuatu, an archipelago comprising approximately 80 low-lying islands in the South Pacific, lies to the west of Fiji and thousands of kilometers east of northern Australia. Vanuatu is situated in a region prone to seismic activity, making it vulnerable to frequent powerful earthquakes and other natural calamities. Mr. Craig remarked, “We had Covid, then we had three cyclones last year. So this is really the last thing we needed,” continuing, “But I think there will be some semblance of normality by Thursday. “Tomorrow the banks will open, we need some apparatus from Australia for the internet to return which we will get soon, and the power will return in a few days. So we are suffering now, but we will get past it.” Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.