A mag­ni­tude 7.3 earth­quake that struck off Van­u­atu killed at least 14 peo­ple, in­jured hun­dreds more and caused wide­spread dam­age across the South Pa­cif­ic is­land na­tion, res­cuers and of­fi­cials said ear­ly Wednes­day. Res­cuers worked through the night try­ing to reach some peo­ple yelling un­der the rub­ble.

The earth­quake oc­curred just be­fore 1 p.m. Tues­day at a depth of 57 kilo­me­tres (35 miles) and was cen­tred 30 kilo­me­tres west of Port Vi­la, the largest city in Van­u­atu, a group of 80 is­lands home to about 330,000 peo­ple. A tsuna­mi warn­ing was called off less than two hours af­ter the quake, which was fol­lowed by large af­ter­shocks.

The Red Cross re­port­ed the death toll of 14 peo­ple ear­ly Wednes­day, cit­ing gov­ern­ment sources. Wide­spread dam­age to telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture im­ped­ed the re­lease of of­fi­cial re­ports. Phone ser­vice re­mained down.

More than 200 peo­ple have been in­jured, said Katie Green­wood, Fi­ji-based head of the Red Cross in the Pa­cif­ic, in a post on X. Van­u­atu’s main hos­pi­tal has been dam­aged and the wa­ter sup­ply has been com­pro­mised, she added.

Clement Chipoko­lo, World Vi­sion’s coun­try di­rec­tor for Van­u­atu said Vi­la Cen­tral Hos­pi­tal was al­ready un­der strain be­fore the quake and was over­whelmed by the del­uge of pa­tients when he vis­it­ed on Tues­day. “They def­i­nite­ly are not cop­ing,” Chipoko­lo told the Aus­tralian Broad­cast­ing Corp.

The UN hu­man­i­tar­i­an of­fice said ac­cess to the air­port and sea port was “se­vere­ly lim­it­ed due to road dam­age.” As­sess­ments of dam­age at the air­port were due to be un­der­tak­en Wednes­day.

Some peo­ple are trapped

So­cial me­dia videos showed res­cue ef­forts through the night for peo­ple trapped in build­ings, in­clud­ing a three-sto­ry struc­ture that col­lapsed on­to its low­er floors.

Aman­da Laith­waite said her hus­band was among res­cuers search­ing for eight peo­ple they could hear yelling in­side, but their progress was slow.

Three peo­ple were pulled alive from rub­ble overnight, her hus­band, Michael Thomp­son, wrote on Face­book. In one video he shared, a dust-cov­ered woman lay on a gur­ney. Army per­son­nel and civil­ians were seen work­ing with tools and shov­els.

Em­bassies are dam­aged

A build­ing hous­ing a num­ber of diplo­mat­ic mis­sions in Port Vi­la — in­clud­ing those of the Unit­ed States, Britain, France and New Zealand — was sig­nif­i­cant­ly dam­aged, with a sec­tion of the build­ing cleav­ing off and flat­ten­ing the first floor. Win­dows were buck­led and walls crum­bled.

The U.S. Em­bassy’s Face­book page said all staff were safe, but the build­ing was closed un­til fur­ther no­tice. The of­fice opened in Ju­ly as part of a push by the U.S. to ex­pand its Pa­cif­ic pres­ence to counter Chi­na’s in­flu­ence in the re­gion.

New Zealand’s for­eign min­istry said of­fi­cials have ac­count­ed for all but two of its em­bassy staff. Aus­tralia’s for­eign min­istry said its work­ers were safe.

Prime Min­is­ter speaks

In the first of­fi­cial com­ments to emerge from the coun­try fol­low­ing wide­spread telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions fail­ures, Prime Min­is­ter Char­lot Sal­wai told the Van­u­atu Broad­cast­ing and Tele­vi­sion Cor­po­ra­tion that a state of emer­gency was de­clared and a cur­few im­posed be­tween 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the worst-hit ar­eas.

On­ly es­sen­tial ser­vices would op­er­ate, Sal­wai said. He urged of­fi­cials to work to re­store wa­ter and phone ser­vice.

Res­i­dents were ear­li­er urged to stay away from coast­lines for at least 24 hours, and un­til tsuna­mi and earth­quake mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems were op­er­a­tional again.

All flights ground­ed

Mc­Gar­ry said a “mas­sive land­slide” at the in­ter­na­tion­al ship­ping ter­mi­nal and dam­age at the air­port was like­ly to im­pede re­cov­ery in a coun­try de­pen­dent on agri­cul­tur­al ex­ports and tourism. Some air­lines in Aus­tralia and the Pa­cif­ic said they had can­celled or paused flights sched­uled for Wednes­day.

A New Zealand mil­i­tary sur­veil­lance plane was due to fly above Van­u­atu on Wednes­day to as­sess the dam­age. New Zealand For­eign Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters said his coun­try hoped to send aid and equip­ment lat­er that day when the air­port was cleared for use.

“With com­mu­ni­ca­tions still bad­ly af­fect­ed as a re­sult of the earth­quake, it is go­ing to take some time to work through with Van­u­atu what as­sis­tance it needs in the days ahead,” Pe­ters said.

Aus­tralia was send­ing two air force trans­port planes car­ry­ing a med­ical team and a search and res­cue team to Van­u­atu on Wednes­day, Aus­tralian De­fense Min­is­ter Richard Mar­les said. France’s mil­i­tary is al­so mo­bi­liz­ing to help, Armed Forces Min­is­ter Sébastien Lecor­nu post­ed on X.

Van­u­atu’s po­si­tion on a sub­duc­tion zone — where the In­do-Aus­tralia tec­ton­ic plate moves be­neath the Pa­cif­ic Plate — means earth­quakes of greater than mag­ni­tude 6 are not un­com­mon, and the coun­try’s build­ings are in­tend­ed to with­stand quake dam­age. —WELLING­TON, New Zealand (AP)

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Sto­ry by CHAR­LOTTE GRA­HAM-McLAY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Rod McGuirk in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia, con­tributed to this re­port.