Vanuatu quake: Clock ticking in race to find survivors

Rescuers search for trapped people after the 7.3 earthquake in Vanuatu. Photo: Supplied / Vanuatu Police Force

Rescuers in Vanuatu will be under pressure to reach trapped people quickly, but there will be tough decisions if buildings aren't safe to enter, a structural engineer says.

Buildings have collapsed in the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Port Vila on Tuesday, killing 14 and injuring hundreds more.

Locals have been working to pull people from the rubble, with New Zealand's specialist Urban Search and Rescue team due to arrive on Wednesday to help.

Structural Engineering Society president NicholasBrooke expected the death toll to rise, and said it was likely his colleagues supporting the rescue effort would have to make some tough decisions.

He said experienced structural engineers would have to make rapid appraisals of damaged buildings - essentially eyeballing them - and judging whether rescuers were safe to enter.

"Rescuers will inherently want to go in and rescue, and there will be situations where the engineer has to say, 'Well this building's not safe enough, and there's nothing we can do to make safe enough' and put it to the team leader that they shouldn't be entering that building.

"Which will obviously be a pretty tough thing to be doing if you know that there could well be people trapped within it."

Brooke said it was a pressured role to be in - analysis was necessary to keep rescuers safe, but it had to be done incredibly quickly, because getting to trapped or injured people was time critical.

He said the current information suggested Tuesday's earthquake was similar in intensity to the 2011 Christchurch quake that collapsed the CTV building, killing more than a hundred inside.

Based on the footage he had seen in Port Vila, he feared the worst.

"It's likely to be quite a significant tragedy, the expectation may well be that the death toll would increase.

Brooke said Vanuatu's building code was modelled on Australia and New Zealand standards, however he could not comment on implentation.

He said buildings in Port Vila that looked like "they'd sat down" suggested some had "soft stories" - an out-dated practice where the bottom floors were weaker than the upper levels, and therefore collapsed more easily in an earthquake, while the top stories remained intact.

New Zealand had undertaken signficant work - and expense - to strengthen such buildings Brooke said, but it was possible Vanuatu did not have the resources to do so.

"The process of recovery and rebuilding is one that will require quite significant time and resources and needs to be made sure that it's done right."

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