Rescue teams dug for survivors trapped in crumpled buildings in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu yesterday after a powerful earthquake killed at least nine people, burying some in rubble and landslides.
People called out from beneath the remains of a flattened three-story shop in the capital, Port Vila, where scores of rescuers worked through the night to find them, Michael Thompson, a resident, said.
“We got three people out that were trapped. Unfortunately, one of them did not make it,” he said.
Photo: AFP
About 80 people including police, medics, trained rescuers and volunteers used excavators, jackhammers, grinders and concrete saws, “just everything we can get our hands on.”
When rescuers on the site went quiet, they could hear three people within signaling they were alive yesterday, Thompson said.
“There’s tonnes and tonnes of rubble on top of them, and two rather significant concrete beams that have pancaked down,” he said. “Obviously they are lucky to be in a bit of a void.”
Rescuers used heavy machinery to claw away rubble from the squashed concrete remains of a building, dust clouding the air.
The magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck off Vanuatu’s main island at 12:47pm local time on Tuesday.
It flattened large buildings, cracked walls, shattered windows and set off landslides in the low-lying archipelago of 320,000 people, which lies in the quake-prone Pacific Rim of Fire.
A string of aftershocks has since shaken the Pacific island nation.
Vanuatu declared a seven-day state of emergency “due to the severe impacts,” along with a curfew from 6pm to 6am.
Australia and New Zealand flew in medical and search-and-rescue personnel on military transport aircraft — including a 64-person Australian team with two search dogs.
Nine people have been confirmed dead by Port Vila’s hospital and that number is likely to rise, an update by Vanuatu’s disaster management office said.
The office had earlier said at least 14 people were killed.
A government spokesperson was unable to immediately explain the change.
Two of the dead were Chinese citizens, the country’s ambassador to Vanuatu told Chinese media.
The quake caused “major structural damage” in more than 10 buildings, including the main hospital, while also hitting three bridges and power lines, the disaster office’s report said.
Two major water reserves supplying Port Vila had been “totally destroyed.”
Mobile communications were “functional with intermittent disruptions,” it said.
Port Vila’s main wharf was closed “due to a major landslide.”
The airport was “not operational,” but could handle incoming humanitarian aid, the report said.
French engineers set up satellite communications at the airport and declared the runway operational, French ambassador Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer said.
The ground floor of a four-story concrete block in Port Vila — used by the US, French, British, Australian and New Zealand diplomatic missions — collapsed. US, French and Australian staff members who were inside are safe, the three countries have said.
Thompson, who runs a zipline adventure business in Vanuatu, said he had seen at least three bodies in the city.
He drove near the airport past a toppled four-story block shortly after the quake. Its ground floor had collapsed under the upper stories.
“When we slowed down with the windows down, we could hear screams coming from inside,” he said.
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