A terrible earthquake tragically struck Vanuatu on Tuesday. According to the Red Cross, this natural disaster left at least 14 dead and emergency services continued to search for survivors in the rubble of the destroyed buildings this Wednesday.
The powerful earthquake, measuring 7.3, occurred at 12:47 p.m. off the main island of this Pacific archipelago, where the capital Port Vila is located.
Water reserves affected
The head of the Red Cross in the Pacific, Katie Greenwood, gave a report on X of “14 confirmed deaths and 200 injured treated at the main hospital in Port Vila”, citing the local government. “Hospital infrastructure is damaged […] Lots of damage to homes,” she wrote, adding that “water supplies” had also been affected.
Several buildings collapsed, including the one housing the French representation, “destroyed” according to the ambassador, specifying on X that the diplomatic staff were “safe and sound”. Michael Thompson, a resident, notably reported collapsed bridges, landslides and three people pulled out of the rubble of a destroyed three-story business. “Unfortunately, one of them did not survive,” he testified. France stands “alongside the Vanuatu authorities” and is prepared “to contribute to relief operations” if they request it, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Tuesday.
Australia, Vanuatu’s largest neighbor, is deploying doctors and first aid teams by military planes this Wednesday, Defense Minister Richard Marles announced to the public channel ABC. New Zealand, for its part, took off a surveillance plane to assess the damage, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement, offering to send personnel and supplies “once the Port airport -Vila will have reopened.”
An archipelago on the Pacific Ring of Fire
“We stand ready to provide assistance to the government of Vanuatu if it requests it,” the American diplomatic mission in Papua New Guinea, in the northwest of the battered archipelago, indicated on X. The Washington embassy in Port Vila, established in the same building as that of France, “has suffered considerable damage and is closed until further notice”, explained the same source, specifying that all staff were ” safe and sound.”
Our articles on Natural Disasters
Earthquakes are frequent in Vanuatu, a low-altitude archipelago of 320,000 inhabitants located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of intense tectonic activity which extends over the majority of the rim of this ocean. It is ranked among the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, storms, floods and tsunamis, according to the annual Global Risks Report.
