Vanuatu earthquake to 'stretch thin' country's recovery from ...

When the dust cleared from the pancaked Billabong surf shop on Port Vila's main street, bystanders ran straight towards the rubble.

Moments after the magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck Vanuatu's capital at 1pm on Tuesday, the sight of the collapsed building jolted them into action, starting a 28-hour search and rescue effort.

That afternoon and into the next day, members of ProRescue — a team of volunteers providing life saving services to the Vanuatu community — teamed up with the country's paramilitary force and members of the public to remove survivors from the debris.

Search and rescue teams worked overnight to recover people from the building. (Supplied: Michael Thompson)

ProRescue leader Troy Spann said while its volunteers could reach the first two with its own equipment, the task grew harder afterwards.

It took a "group effort" to save other survivors, with Vanuatu's Mobile Force and community members using their machinery to remove debris, letting ProRescue workers go in and retrieve people.

"You're going under, into the dark. Every time we got somebody out, it was like a reward," Mr Spann said.

They recovered seven survivors from the wreckage, the last emerging at 4pm on Wednesday.

The team also removed one person who had died so they could reach a trapped survivor.

By the time international search and rescuers arrived and took over, it remained unclear how many others had been in the store when it collapsed.

The Billabong building had customers inside when the earthquake struck. (VBTC)

Vanuatu's official death toll from the earthquake is 12, but it is expected to rise.

Since the initial quake, there have been numerous aftershocks at nearly the same location.

The latest is a magnitude-6.1 earthquake that struck off the coast of Vanuatu early on Sunday. 

No tsunami alerts were immediately triggered by the latest earthquake, which occurred at a depth of 40 kilometres and was located about 30 kilometres west of Port Vila.

Vanuatu's caretaker Disaster Management Minister John Salong said on Thursday people remained missing after the initial earthquake.

He also acknowledged that, two days after the disaster struck, search efforts were turning to removing bodies from the rubble of buildings and landslides around Port Vila.

Vanuatu is in an official period of mourning, and a week-long state of emergency is in place as authorities scramble to reconnect water and electricity.

The disaster struck just as Vanuatu was recovering from an onslaught of crises that have hit the developing nation over the last two years.

Tropical Cyclone Lola severely damaged buildings in Vanuatu's islands including on Pentecost in October 2023. (Supplied: Andrew Gray)

Three severe cyclones devastated its islands last year — all while memories of Tropical Cyclones Pam (2015) and Harold (2020) remained fresh.

Pacific analyst Tess Newton Cain said while Vanuatu had long experienced natural disasters, in recent years they had followed in quicker succession.

"When it comes to natural disasters and the impacts of climate change, Vanuatu is basically in a constant state of recovery," she said.

"And [the earthquake] just adds to that."

The quake also struck at a time of uncertainty for Vanuatu, which has a caretaker government and snap elections due on January 14 following a fresh round of political turmoil.

And while people in Vanuatu applaud its latest show of resilience, they say it can't respond to its cascading natural disasters alone.

Port Vila's streets were bustling with people and traffic in the lead-up to Christmas, when the earthquake struck about 30 kilometres west of the city, at a depth of 57 kilometres.

Its residents — who live in a country on the seismically-active Pacific "Ring of Fire" — commonly feel tremors.

But Tuesday's earthquake was the most severe many had experienced.

The building hosting the embassies of France and the US, and the high commissions of New Zealand and the United Kingdom, sustained major damage. (X: Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer)

Mr Salong, who was in Port Vila's Tana Russet shopping plaza during the quake, said it was the scariest and most devastating he'd been through.

"I saw everything flying, everything falling off, and everything shaking and everything looking like the walls could collapse and the floors could buckle," he said.

After it settled, people knew immediately to run to higher ground.

Ethel Tama was in a meeting at the bayside hotel Chantilly's when the shaking started.

"Everyone was very traumatised," she said.

"All the children in the pool and everyone tried to escape. They couldn't because it was very fast and strong.

"All we could think of was to run up to higher ground because we thought that a tsunami would strike that instant."

At the Chuan Store in Port Vila suburb Freswota 1, another resident, Alya, could hear the walls cracking as the earth shook.

"My initial thought was to hide under the table, because that's what we were told during high school," she said.

"I felt like the building would collapse, so I started making my way outside towards the door.

"I was just holding onto the door frame until everything calmed down."

Some Ni-Vanuatu lost their houses and are now living in tents around Port Vila.

Port Vila resident Bule Sero lost his house in the magnitude-7.3 earthquake. (ABC News: Lillyrose Welwel)

Over at Stella Mare, on the city's outskirts, community members who had been washing in a stream sheltered with children from the other side of the city in a nearby cave.

After rocks came down at the entrance, they used another exit to escape and reach the nearby village.

Masses of earth rushed down hillsides and cliffs around the main island, Efate, hitting homes at the village of Mele Maat north-west of Port Vila.

Another landslide buried part of the main road to Port Vila's wharf.

The Port Vila wharf was busy with people when the landslide buried the road leading to the facility. (Supplied: Dan McGarry)

The area had been busy with people departing the city to their home islands for Christmas.

"The whole wharf road was chock-a-block full of vehicles and people," Mr Salong said.

"We don't know how many people are buried under there."

As Vanuatu mourns the people who've been lost, it's also springing into action.

It's a reflex for a country long used to natural disasters.

While utility company UNELCO started reconnecting water and electricity, and telecommunications came back online, people cleaned up debris around the city and returned to work.

Nakatumble Resort owner Romina Micallef said businesses were already reopening on Wednesday, partly because in a country without social security, people needed their incomes to survive.

"As a community, we're all just pulling in together and just moving on," Ms Micallef said.

After three cyclones in 2023, the COVID economic downturn, and the collapse of national airline Air Vanuatu in May, tourism businesses are again hoping to recover.

"You really couldn't throw much more at people," Ms Micallef said.

But she said while the city was already bouncing back, tourism cancellations risked plunging Vanuatu into more difficulty.

Tourism businesses including the Iririki Resort in Port Vila have said Australian tourists will help Vanuatu's recovery. (ABC News: Doug Dingwall)

She's one of several tourism business operators asking Australians not to cancel their holidays to Vanuatu.

"Cancellations are just like a punch in the gut, and we don't need a punch in the gut right now," Ms Micallef said.

"All of us have to fix our own things, and we can't do that without an income. And the only way we all have income is through tourism."

Dr Newton Cain said tourism would be part of Vanuatu's economic recovery over coming months.

But she was concerned the onslaught of crises hitting the nation was giving its people little space to focus on thriving.

"There are a number of people in Vanuatu, a number of businesses, a number of communities, that just feel like it's a bit of an exercise in running to stand still," she said.

"I don't see that this resilience is suddenly going to dry up.

"It's not like it's a finite resource, but it is being stretched thinly."

Vanuatu still has to get through a cyclone season that runs until April — and a low-pressure system hovering over the Coral Sea already prompted warnings on Thursday of heavy rain causing further landslides.

And while the country begins its next round of recovery, it also has to elect a new government.

Some question how the earthquake will impact the election date, but Mr Salong said under Vanuatu's constitution, the poll must happen by mid-January.

"It all has to be done and it can be done," he said.

While it focuses on the immediate disaster response, Vanuatu is yet to learn the cost of the recovery effort.

The caretaker government has asked for engineers from its donor partner nations to determine the safety of Port Vila's buildings.

The developing nation, already struggling to rebuild infrastructure after previous disasters, will also need financial help.

Mr Salong said Vanuatu's partners could also help its longer-term recovery by contributing to a newly-created loss-and-damage fund it has established with New Zealand.

But some are warning that while help is needed, donor countries should let Vanuatu lead its own recovery.

Dr Newton Cain said they should be careful to tailor their help to the country's needs.

"The experts on what Vanuatu needs are the people who live in Vanuatu, who work for the government, who are in the private sector, who are part of civil society," she said.

"And they are the people who should be leading on conversations as to what happens next in terms of response and recovery."