The U.S. Embassy reportedly suffered severe damage during a 7.4 magnitude earthquake on the Pacific island of Vanuatu near Australia.
“An earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila on Tuesday, damaging buildings and cars with at least one person reported killed,” reported Reuters.
“Vanuatu state broadcaster VBTC showed footage of vehicles crushed in a building collapse on a street lined with retailers. The broadcaster reported one person had been trapped in a collapsed building,” it added.
Video circulating on social media showed “buckled windows and collapsed concrete pillars on a building hosting foreign missions in the capital, including the U.S., British, French and New Zealand embassies.”
A spokesperson for New Zealand’s foreign ministry said in a statement the country’s “High Commission building, which is co-located with the United States, the French and the United Kingdom, has sustained significant damage.”
Dan McGarry, a journalist with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project based in Vanuatu, reported seeing three people injured.
“I saw three people seriously injured on gurneys waiting treatment,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
“There is substantial damage around town. We’ve got a building that has pancaked,” he added.
Vanuatu had been a colony of the British and the French until 1980 when it gained independence and became an independent republic.
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