A magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurred on Sunday (local time) off the coast of Vanuatu, the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS) announced, but without causing major damage a few days after a 7.3 earthquake near this same island of Efate.
• Also read: Powerful earthquake in Vanuatu: 14 deaths and significant damage
• Also read: Vanuatu earthquake: rescuers searching for survivors
The new tremor occurred at 2:30 a.m. (3:30 p.m. GMT Saturday) at a depth of 40 kilometers and about 30 kilometers west of the capital, Port Vila, on the main island of the South Pacific archipelago, said the USGS.
No tsunami alert was issued.
A Port Vila entrepreneur, Michael Thomson, told AFP that the earthquake had woken up his family. “It shook quite a bit, the windows too and made the houses shake,” he said.
But the tremors had only “a few inches” of amplitude, he explained, while during “the main earthquake, we had very rapid and sudden movements of a meter and a half in amplitude “.
“I would describe [cette secousse] like one of the strongest aftershocks we've had and we've had quite a few,” added this resident.
With mobile phone networks remaining out of service since the previous earthquake which killed a dozen people on Tuesday in landslides and the collapse of buildings, external contacts with Vanuatu were difficult early Sunday morning.
Tuesday's earthquake also damaged water supply systems and halted activities at the capital's largest seaport.
The Vanuatu authorities then declared a state of emergency for a period of seven days and a nighttime curfew.
They only announced on Saturday the lifting of the suspension of commercial flights, in order to revive a vital tourism industry which directly or indirectly contributes to more than half of the national economy.
Vanuatu, which has some 320,000 inhabitants, is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes are frequent.
Relief operations
Australia and New Zealand this week dispatched more than 100 people, as well as equipment and dogs, to help search for buried survivors and carry out emergency repairs.
There have been “several sites where the collapses have been major and the buildings are completely crushed,” said the head of the Australian rescue team, Douglas May, in a video on Friday.
In Port Vila, rescuers focused on two areas affected by Tuesday's earthquake: one that houses a supermarket building, a hotel and a garage in the north and another that houses a commercial building in the city center.
More than 1,000 people were displaced by the first quake, many of whom are now sheltering in other homes or evacuation centers, according to the latest UN report, citing disaster management officials. from Vanuatu.
With the power cuts, “many large businesses are still down” while “supermarkets are trying to open again,” said Michael Thomson.
“It's really different from the disasters we've experienced in the past,” he added, stressing that if “cyclones destroy everything outside, earthquakes destroy a lot of infrastructure inside. the interior of buildings.
