Three people were pulled alive from rubble overnight, her husband, Michael Thompson, wrote on Facebook. In one video he shared, a dust-covered woman lay on a gurney. Army personnel and civilians worked with tools and shovels, Thompson said.
The country does not have capacity to cope with a mass casualty event, Vanuatu-based journalist Dan McGarry told The Associated Press. He had visited Vila Central Hospital, where video shared by the Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation showed crowds outside.
Doctors were working “as fast as they could” at a triage centre outside the emergency ward, he said.
Embassies are damaged
A building housing a number of diplomatic missions in Port Vila — including those of the United States, Britain, France and New Zealand — was significantly damaged.
The US embassy’s Facebook page said all staff were safe, but the building was closed until further notice. The office opened in July as part of a push by the US to expand its Pacific presence to counter China’s influence in the region. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Papua New Guinea said all personnel who were in the building were able to safely evacuate, the spokesperson added.
New Zealand’s Foreign Ministry said officials have accounted for all but two of its embassy staff. Australia’s Foreign Ministry said its workers were safe.
Rescue personnel survey the damage to a building in Port Vila on Tuesday.Credit: Michael Thompson/Facebook
All flights grounded
McGarry said a “massive landslide” at the international shipping terminal was likely to impede recovery. The airport’s runway is also damaged, he said.
Some airlines in Australia and the Pacific said they had cancelled or paused flights scheduled for Wednesday and were awaiting news of the airport’s status.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said there was significant damage and Australia was preparing to deploy assistance, including urban search and rescue and emergency medical teams on Wednesday.
Vanuatu’s position on a subduction zone — where the Indo-Australia tectonic plate moves beneath the Pacific Plate — means earthquakes of greater than magnitude 6 are not uncommon, and the country’s buildings are intended to withstand quake damage.
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 on Tuesday evening that six people had died and more than 50 were injured.
“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,” McGarry told Reuters.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said there was significant damage and Australia was preparing to deploy assistance, including urban search and rescue and emergency medical teams on Wednesday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated 116,000 people, nearly half of the country’s population, had been affected by the earthquake. It said there was 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.
‘Devastated families’
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said on Facebook he was “saddened by the news of the earthquake which has claimed lives and devastated families in Vanuatu”.
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Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland said on X many people had been injured and infrastructure had been destroyed.
Security camera footage from the moment the quake struck showed people scattering in panic in a garage and cars rocking on the ground.
The country’s government is in caretaker mode ahead of a national election, after the president dissolved parliament last month.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck 30km west of the coast of Port Vila, the capital, at a depth of 10km. It has since been revised to 57.1km.
Half a dozen aftershocks hit the same area, USGS data showed. Several were heavy enough to be felt in Port Vila, McGarry said.
Vanuatu, a group of 80 islands that are home to some 330,000 people, lies on the “Ring of Fire”, a 40,000-kilometre seismically active arc around the rim of the Pacific tectonic plate.
The US Tsunami Warning System cancelled an initial tsunami warning for area.
