By 1News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver
A number of Kiwis have been successfully evacuated from Vanuatu after a devastating earthquake shook the Pacific island nation earlier this week.
The death toll was still unclear, though at least 14 people were killed according to an earlier statement from the Vanuatu government.
The 7.3 magnitude quake struck on Tuesday, and more than 200 people were injured.
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Searchers were racing against time to find survivors in the rubble, Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver reported for 1News Breakfast from Port Vila.
She also said that aftershocks continued to shake the country, making search efforts more difficult.
“Our team has integrated with the Australians, that is to make the most of this very small window that they have now to find survivors,” she said.
“Time is not on their side, so they’ve really got to make the most of it.
“It’s a very volatile situation still, we’ve been speaking to some very distressed people trying to get home.”
Volunteers and rescue teams arrive at Ifira, a small island off Port Vila, after the #earthquake that hit #Vanuatu. The area is obstructed by large rocks resulting from #landslides. The death toll rose to 14, with dozens injured.#extremeweather#nature#climate pic.twitter.com/ZBapgvDM6p
— Genesis Watchman Report (@ReportWatchman) December 18, 2024
The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) said late last night that a flight carrying 93 passengers, almost all Kiwis and their families, had left Port Vila at about 7.45pm New Zealand time.
“A small number of foreign nationals are also being assisted on this flight,” the NZDF said.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters confirmed the flight’s arrival overnight.
He wrote on X at about 5.30am today: “We are pleased to have evacuated 93 people from Port Vila on a @NZDefenceForce flight overnight.
People about to depart Vanuatu on a RNZAF Boeing 757. Image: NZDF
“The passengers were mostly New Zealanders and their families, but also included around 12 foreign nationals from Samoa, the United Kingdom, Singapore, France and Finland.
“Our consular team continues to assist New Zealanders affected by the earthquake in Vanuatu.”
Any Kiwis still in Vanuatu were urged to call MFAT on +64 99 20 20 20.
“New Zealand’s efforts to aid Vanuatu with its earthquake response, through the provision of personnel and relief supplies, continues,” Peters said.
Australian couple describe earthquake ‘mayhem’
Australian couple Susie Nailon and her partner Tony Ferreira told 1News about the “mayhem” of being inside the Billabong shop when the quake hit.
“It sort of started to rumble a little bit and I looked up in the ceiling and saw the ceiling start to come down on the fluorescent light. But it wasn’t just a shake, it no longer shook left or right, the whole ground started to wave,” said Ferreira.
“The whole roof had caved down . . . It just felt like a deck of cards. [It came] straight down, flattened everything.
“And the force of it just pushed all the windows, plastered glass straight out in the road from all that weight,” he said.
He said there were about six or seven others in the shop with them at the time, and said the couple only made it out by “literally seconds”.
“If my rack had been a couple more metres in, then there’s no chance. It was that quick. There was no warning,” he said.
Nailon said the aftershocks had been really triggering, and as soon as she felt something she was “straight out the door”.
“No one has a chance if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.
Kiwi helping out in Vanuatu
New Zealander Jason Horan, who lives in Port Vila, told 1News it was “just chaos” in the aftermath of the quake.
“There [were] people lying on the ground everywhere, buildings falling down, so it was pretty scary,” he said.
He said he watched the road move “like a wave”.
Since the quake, Horan said he had been helping others simply because he wanted to.
“I’ve been running everybody around, just trying to supply everybody with food and water. So I go around to every hotel and resort making sure they know who to talk to and stuff like that.”
He said he wanted to do his part in “making sure people are okay”.
“All the locals are pulling together though . . . they’re resilient, so it’s really good.”
NZ High Commissioner on quake and what comes next
New Zealand High Commissioner to Vanuatu Nicci Simmonds said the commission was in the top storey of a three-storey concrete building.
“I was at my desk at the time [of the quake], so that’s about as far away from the entry/exit as you can get,” she said.
“So you follow your schoolgirl training and you just get under the table, holding on while it jumped around a lot. A lot of noise.”
She said there was dust everywhere when the shaking stopped. She tried to check on a colleague.
“Very close to her desk, the building had completely separated. There was a three-storey drop.”
Everyone managed to get out of the building, Simmonds said. Initially, communications were the biggest challenge, she added.
“Now, it’s making sure that reliable safe drinking water, power, and basic infrastructure is up and running.”
Simmonds said the impact was “highly localised”, based on aerial surveillance.
“It’s a significant, major event in Port Vila, but it doesn’t appear that there have been villages buried by landslides elsewhere, so that’s been an enormous relief.”
She said the response was “the kind of job that surges, and peaks, and changes”.
Republished from 1News with permission.
