Quake strikes near battered Vanuatu; no major damage reported

A handout photo taken on Dec. 21, 2024 and received from the Australian Department Foreign Affairs and Trade shows Australian Defense Forces helping Australians off a C-130J Hercules at Brisbane Airport after an earthquake struck Port Vila, Vanuatu.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA —

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake rattled buildings on Vanuatu\’s main island early Sunday but did not appear to have caused major damage, just days after a massive, deadly quake wreaked havoc on the Pacific archipelago.

The nation\’s most populous island, Efate, is still reeling from the 7.3-magnitude quake that struck Tuesday. It killed 12 people as it toppled concrete buildings in the capital, Port Vila, and set off landslides.

The quake on Sunday occurred at a depth of 40 kilometers and was located about 30 km west of the capital.

Unlike the earlier quake, no tsunami alerts were triggered when it struck at 2:30 a.m. local time.

Port Vila businessman Michael Thompson told AFP the quake woke up his family.

"It gave a better bit of a shake, and the windows rattled a little bit, it would have caused houses to rattle," he said.

"I\’d describe this one as one of the bigger aftershocks, and we\’ve had a fair few of them now," he added.

Thompson said there was no sign of further damage in his immediate vicinity.

Mobile networks remained knocked out from earlier in the week, making outside contact with Vanuatu difficult.

In addition to disrupting communications, the first quake damaged water supplies and stopped operations at the capital\’s main shipping port.

The South Pacific nation declared a seven-day state of emergency and a nighttime curfew following the first quake. It announced on Saturday that it would begin to allow commercial flights in an effort to restart its vital tourism industry, which accounts for about a third of the economy.

On Friday, rescuers said they had expanded their search for trapped survivors to "numerous places of collapse" beyond the capital.

Australia and New Zealand this week dispatched more than 100 people, along with rescue gear, dogs and aid supplies, to help hunt for trapped survivors and make emergency repairs.

There were "several major collapse sites where buildings are fully pancaked," Australia\’s rescue team leader Douglas May said in a video update on Friday.

"We\’re now starting to spread out to see whether there\’s further people trapped and further damage. And we\’ve found numerous places of collapse east and west out of the city."

More than 1,000 people were displaced as a result of the first quake, many now with other households or in evacuation centers, the latest United Nations report said, citing Vanuatu disaster management officials.

Thompson said power had been restored to his home on Saturday but said many others were still waiting.

"We\’re hearing a lot of the major businesses are still down, supermarkets are trying to open back up," he said.

Vanuatu, an archipelago of about 320,000 inhabitants, sits in the Pacific\’s quake-prone Ring of Fire.

By：VOA