{"id":12125,"date":"2024-12-19T06:24:37","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T17:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=12125"},"modified":"2024-12-19T06:24:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T17:24:37","slug":"vanuatu-earthquake-nz-rescue-crews-head-to-quake-hit-nation-as-search-for-survivors-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=12125","title":{"rendered":"Vanuatu earthquake: NZ rescue crews head to quake-hit nation as search for survivors continues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand emergency workers from both the Defence Force and Fire and Emergency are joining the race to save those trapped under buildings that have collapsed in Port Vila after a 7.3 earthquake hit Vanuatu.<\/p>\n<p>There are fears some remain trapped under landslides also.<\/p>\n<p>The death toll climbed to 14 on Wednesday while at least 200 are being treated for injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Two Chinese nationals were among the fatalities, the Chinese ambassador told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>There were\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/536997\/vanuatu-quake-missing-mfat-staff-found-safe-nz-offers-search-and-rescue-help\">concerns for two New Zealand embassy staff who were unaccounted for overnight<\/a>\u00a0but they were safe, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced this morning.<\/p>\n<h3>The international response<\/h3>\n<p>Caretaker Prime Minister Charlot Salwai said a national disaster committee has declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew for seven days in the worst-affected areas, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n<p>The United States Agency for International Development said it was sending a team to Vanuatu, where it keeps relief supplies pre-positioned in Port Vila.<\/p>\n<p>Australia&#8217;s government said\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/world\/536988\/australia-sends-immediate-search-and-rescue-assistance-to-vanuatu-following-powerful-earthquake\">a 64-person disaster response team<\/a>\u00a0with two dogs to undertake urban search and rescue operations, as well as Australian Federal Police, would arrive on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>France&#8217;s ambassador to Vanuatu, Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer, said a French military helicopter had arrived from New Caledonia with satellite communications and military engineers<\/p>\n<p>Port Vila&#8217;s international airport would be closed to commercial airlines for 72 hours, to allow medical and emergency aircraft to land, Airports Vanuatu chief executive Jason Rakau told VBTC.<\/p>\n<p>The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated 116,000 people, around one-third of the country&#8217;s population, had been affected by the earthquake.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand emergency workers from both the Defence Force and Fire and Emergency are joining the race to save those trapped under buildings that have collapsed in Port Vila after a 7.3 earthquake hit Vanuatu. There are fears some remain trapped under landslides also. The death toll climbed to 14 on Wednesday while at least [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12127,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12125\/revisions\/12127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}