7.3 magnitude earthquake shakes Vanuatu and raises a tsunami warning in the Pacific

A strong earthquake caused major damage Tuesday in the capital of the small island nation of Vanuatu in the Pacific, where a witness assured AFP that he had seen dead bodies in the street.

The magnitude 7.3 quake was recorded at 12:47 a.m. (1:47 a.m. GMT) at a depth of 35 miles and a distance of 18 miles off the coast of the capital, Port Vila, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The first floor of a building housing the U.S. and French embassies was flattened by the upper floors, Michael Thompson, a city resident who posted pictures of the wreckage on social media, told AFP.

"There are people in the buildings in the city. There were dead bodies there when I walked by," the man said in a satellite phone conversation.

In addition, a landslide buried a bus, Thompson said, evoking the possibility of more casualties.

The U.S. Embassy in Papua New Guinea, another country in the region, announced the closure of its mission in Vanuatu because of the "considerable damage" caused by the earthquake.

Videos released by Thompson and verified by AFP show rescue teams working in a building whose wall collapsed on top of parked cars and vans.

Shortly after the quake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert for the possibility of waves of up to 3 feet high off the coast of Vanuatu, but lifted it shortly afterward.

This institute had also warned of possible foot-high waves in other nations in the area such as Fiji, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the French territory of New Caledonia.

Earthquakes are common in this low-lying archipelago with about 320,000 inhabitants. The country lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity.

Vanuatu is one of the countries most exposed to natural disasters such as earthquakes, storms, floods and tsunamis, according to the World Risk Report.