Buildings in Vanuatu damaged and casualties reported as magnitude 7.3 earthquake hits South Pacific island nation

Buildings have been damaged and there are reports of injuries after a powerful earthquake struck just off the coast of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.

The tremor was centred near Port Vila, the largest city on the group of 80 islands, at a depth of 35 miles (56km) below the earth’s surface on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

It was followed by a magnitude 5.5 aftershock at the same spot.

Communications with the country, which is home to around 330,000 people across its islands, were knocked out by the quake, making official information scarce.

But witness accounts of casualties arriving at hospitals began to surface on social media and through patchy phone calls.

Video posted online showed extensive damage to buildings, as well as vehicles and roads.

Soldiers were at the site of one collapsed building, whose awning had fallen onto cars, crushing them.

Another video showed what appeared to be extensive damage to the ground floor of the US embassy, where windows had buckled and walls turned to rubble.

Other foreign missions, including those of Britain, France, and New Zealand, suffered some damage, including buckled windows.

Another video, posted by Dan McGarry, showed aerial pictures of a “massive” landslide at the international shipping terminal.

Mr McGarry, a journalist based in Port Vila, told The Associated Press he heard of one death in the quake from a police officer outside Vila Central Hospital where he saw three people on gurneys “in obvious distress”.

Doctors were working “as fast as they could” at a triage centre outside the emergency ward, he added. But the nation is not equipped for a mass casualty event, Mr McGarry said, adding that the airport’s runway is also damaged.

Videos shared by the Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation also showed crowds outside the hospital.

Reports of people trapped inside buildings could not immediately be confirmed.

A Red Cross spokesperson in Fiji said the head of the aid agency’s Vanuatu office had reported widespread damage before communications were cut off.

The USGS issued a tsunami warning for waves of up to 30cm (11 inches) to 1m (39 inches) above the tide level for some coasts on Vanuatu but the warning was called off less than two hours after the quake.

Warnings of smaller waves were issued for a number of nearby Pacific Island countries, including Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Solomon Islands.

Vanuatu government websites were offline in the aftermath of the quake and phone numbers for the police and other public agencies did not connect, making it difficult to confirm details.

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Authorities in Australia and New Zealand said there was no tsunami threat to their countries.

Katie Greenwood, a Fiji-based regional head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, posted on social media platform X to say trained Red Cross volunteers were on the ground in Vanuatu and ready to assist affected communities.