Bodies seen in street as 7.3 earthquake hits Vanuatu
Quoting witnesses, local media reported many bodies were seen lying in the street after the earthquake.
According to the US Geological Survey, the 7.3-magnitude earthquake occurred around 12:47 pm (0147 GMT) at a depth of 57 kilometers (35 miles), approximately 30 kilometers off the coast of Efate, the major island of Vanuatu.
After sharing pictures of the devastation on social media, local Michael Thompson said via satellite phone that the ground level of a building that housed the US and French embassies had been crushed beneath upper stories.
The quake also collapsed at least two bridges, said Thompson, who runs a zipline business in Vanuatu, and the ground floor of a concrete building housing diplomatic missions had been flattened.
Most mobile networks had been cut off, Thompson said.
Video footage posted by Thompson showed uniformed rescuers and emergency vehicles working on a building where an external roof had collapsed onto a number of parked cars and trucks.
The streets of the city were strewn with broken glass and other debris from damaged buildings, the footage showed.
A tsunami warning was issued after the quake, with waves of up to one metre (three feet) forecast for some areas of Vanuatu, but soon lifted by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
Other Pacific island nations, including as Fiji, Kiribati, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu, were expected to see waves that were less than 30 centimeters (one foot) over the tidal level.
Vanuatu, a low-lying archipelago of 320,000 people that sits astride the seismic Ring of Fire—an arc of strong tectonic activity that runs across the Pacific basin and through Southeast Asia—frequently experiences earthquakes.
According to the annual World Risk Report, Vanuatu is among the nations most vulnerable to natural disasters like earthquakes, storm damage, flooding, and tsunamis.
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