A powerful 7.3 magnitude earthquake shook Vanuatu on Tuesday, triggering a temporary tsunami alert. A witness says he saw bodies in the streets, a police source confirms one dead and several injured.
At least one person lost his life in the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Vanuatu on Tuesday, causing significant damage, according to police cited by Australian public media ABC. A witness also told AFP that he had seen corpses in the streets of the capital Port Vila.
The police source confirmed one death and having seen mass triage of the injured at the hospital.
Witness Michael Thompson, who lives in the area, also told AFP that he had seen lifeless bodies in the streets of the capital Port Vila. He reported collapsed bridges and landslides caused by the earthquake.
The epicenter of this earthquake detected at 12:47 p.m. local time (01:47 GMT) was recorded at a depth of 43 kilometers at sea, just 30 kilometers west of the capital of this island nation, according to the Institute of Geological Studies of the United States (USGS), triggering a tsunami warning, since lifted.
The United States Embassy in Port Vila “has suffered considerable damage and is closed until further notice”also indicated the American diplomatic mission in Papua New Guinea in a press release on X. According to images published online by Mr. Thompson, the earthquake damaged this building, which also houses the French embassy and the New Zealand diplomatic representation.
The earthquake toppled a concrete pillar, cracked a wall and distorted windows in the building, which also houses the diplomatic representations of other countries, including New Zealand, again according to images shared on social networks.
The Australian embassy in Vanuatu was evacuated, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced that she was offering her country’s assistance to Vanuatu, a country “ami“.
The Vanuatu government website was not accessible after the earthquake.
The Red Cross on site has already announced that it has volunteers ready to provide assistance.
Earthquakes are common in Vanuatu, a low-lying archipelago of 320,000 people that straddles the Pacific seismic Ring of Fire, an arc of intense tectonic activity that stretches from Southeast Asia to the Pacific basin.
Vanuatu is ranked among the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, storm damage, floods and tsunamis, according to the annual Global Risks Report.
Earthquake Vanuata Oceania Pacific Archipelago
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