According to a report obtained by AFP from the National Disaster Management Office, fourteen people died: four who were hospitalized in the capital, six killed in a landslide and four in a collapsed building, according to this press release in date of Tuesday evening. Among the dead were two Chinese nationals, Beijing’s ambassador to Vanuatu reported on Chinese television. More than 200 people received treatment in hospital, according to the government report.
Buildings and bridges damaged, port and airport closed
The quake caused “considerable structural damage” to at least ten buildings, including a hospital, and also damaged three bridges and two power lines.
Two important water reserves supplying Port Vila, “totally destroyed”, will require reconstruction, according to the same report. The main port of Port Vila is closed “due to a major landslide”.
The head of the Red Cross in the Pacific, Katie Greenwood, also mentioned on X “a lot of damage to homes”. 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”.
The airport serving Port Vila is “not operational”, but nevertheless allows the arrival of humanitarian aid flights, the Vanuatu government said.
France, Australia, New Zealand and the United States ready to help
France said it stood “alongside the Vanuatu authorities” and was prepared “to contribute to relief operations” if they requested it, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Tuesday.
Australia, Vanuatu’s largest neighbor, is deploying doctors and rescue teams by military planes on 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”.
“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.
A 5.5 magnitude aftershock occurred after the initial earthquake, followed by a series of smaller tremors. According to Behzad Fatahi, a civil and seismic engineer from the University of Technology Sydney, we must be attentive to the delayed consequences. “It is expected” that the earthquake “has caused cracks in masonry walls, instability of foundations and the tilting of vulnerable structures,” he warned.
