Rescuers in Vanuatu are racing to find survivors trapped in buildings, a day after 7.3 magnitude earthquake Attacked the capital Port Vila, killing 14 people.

Tuesday’s quake injured at least 200 people, with many of the casualties concentrated around several buildings in the city centre.

One witness, who was inside Vanuatu’s tallest building when the earthquake struck, told the BBC he and his wife “sprinted” outside, adding “if it had lasted 10 seconds, I wouldn’t be talking to you today.”

Police said a seven-day state of emergency has been declared to restrict public movement while rescue operations are underway.

Vanuatu Business Resilience Council chairman Glenn Craig told the BBC he was in “good spirits” and enjoying Christmas celebrations with his wife when Tuesday’s earthquake struck, catching them completely off guard.

“We (Vanuatu) are used to disasters… You can usually hear an earthquake coming; you hear it like a rumble or a low roar. But this time we had no warning at all – just Suddenly there was a rumble. It was next level and felt like a generational thing.”

The government’s Disaster Management Office said at least 10 buildings in Port Vila suffered “significant structural damage”. Shakes from the quake also disrupted power and mobile services.

Craig said one building that houses several embassies, including the U.S. Embassy and the British High Commission, was particularly affected.

“That building was a pancake,” he said. “About seven or eight buildings (in the area) have suffered catastrophic damage and I expect the number of casualties to rise.”

A series of aftershocks were also reported overnight.

“There were a lot of aftershocks throughout the night,” Australian Caroline Bird, who was at a resort in Port Vila, told ABC News. “Probably (can’t) count how many there are.”

Six victims were killed by landslides and four others were in collapsed buildings when the quake struck. The death toll is expected to rise further.

China’s ambassador to Vanuatu, Li Minggang, told state media that two of the 14 victims were Chinese citizens.

Photos shared by Vanuatu police on Facebook showed rescue workers sifting through rubble with their hands and crawling under the floors of collapsed buildings.

Michael Thompson was one of those who spent the night searching for survivors.

He posted on Facebook that he rescued three people from a building overnight, but later told news organizations that one of them later died.

Thompson added that rescue teams were in urgent need of jackhammers, excavators and cold drinking water, adding that many rescuers were “working through the night.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said an estimated 116,000 people may be most severely affected by the earthquake.

However, Mr Craig said most of the damage was limited to one specific area. Vanuatu’s suburbs were largely unscathed, as were most people living outside the capital, he added.

“We’re used to hurricanes causing food shortages, housing problems, etc. But this time, that’s not the case,” he said.

“But we don’t usually have this many deaths from natural disasters, so this level of death toll is not normal for us.”

Neighboring Australia will send rescue teams to assist with search and rescue efforts, and the United States and France have also pledged assistance.

The earthquake struck at 12:47 local time (01:47 GMT) on Tuesday and triggered a brief tsunami warning.

Vanuatu is a low-lying archipelago of about 80 islands in the South Pacific, located thousands of kilometers west of Fiji and east of northern Australia.

Vanuatu is located in an active seismic area, and natural disasters such as major earthquakes occur frequently.

“We’ve had COVID and we’ve had three hurricanes last year. So it’s really the last thing we need,” Mr Craig said. “But I think by Thursday things will be back to normal.

“The banks are opening tomorrow and we need some equipment from Australia to restore the internet and we will get that soon and power will be restored in a few days. So we are suffering now but we will get over it.”