At least six people were killed and entire villages engulfed by the sea after a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the tiny Solomon Islands, triggering a Pacific panic and fears of more deaths.
The shallow quake, with a magnitude of at least 8,0, levelled buildings and damaged a hospital on Gizo island north-west of the Solomons capital, Honiara, while a tsunami sucked homes into the sea as thousands of panicked residents fled for higher ground.
”At least six people are confirmed dead, but that number will increase because there are lots of missing people,” Solomon Islands’ chief government spokesperson Alfred Maesulia told Reuters.
”The wave was up to 10m high in some villages. Some villages have been entirely washed away.”
”It was just like a real extreme tide … the water just came up about probably about 4 to 5m above sea level and kind of just went up into the communities and doused everything,” Danny Kennedy, a dive shop owner and provincial politician on Gizo, told Reuters.
A 12-year-old girl in Gizo drowned as the tsunami swept ashore. Witnesses said an elderly woman also died when she was trapped in her house as it was washed into the sea by the retreating wave but she had not been included in the official toll.
Two died on the western Solomons island of Choiseul, while three people died on the remote island on Mono, Maesulia said.
”Those western islands are very scattered and it’s very difficult for us to get there or communicate, but we are sending a team to investigate,” he said.
The Solomons government national disaster council was meeting in Honiara.
Jackson Kiloe, the Premier of Choiseul, said huge rolling waves were crashing ashore, prompting evacuations.
”The huge wave rolls are stronger than floods,” he said. ”They are causing large areas of ocean to dry up.”
In the Papua New Guinea port city of Rabaul, residents fled as the sea drained, a possible pointer to a coming tsunami. The Australian government said a 3m wave struck the western Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii placed the quake’s centre 350km north-west of Honiara when it struck at about 6.40am (8.40pm GMT on Sunday).
An alert from the centre also prompted regional tsunami warnings in Japan and Australia. Beaches along Australia’s east coast were shut and ferry services halted on Sydney Harbour amid fears of a repeat of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster.
Communications problems
Solomons’ disaster management authorities said communications problems were preventing an assessment of damage on Simbo island where residents reported waves hitting houses 200m inland.
On nearby Mono four people were missing after a series of landslides. In Gizo, a hospital was damaged in the town of about 20 000 and patients had been taken to a doctor’s house on higher ground, with more than 2 000 left homeless.
”There are quite large boats sitting in the middle of the road. Many of the houses that were on stilts are sitting on the ground. A number of the coastal communities have been completely wiped out,” dive shop owner Kennedy said.
The National Disaster Management Office manager Julian McLeod said up to 60 buildings had been destroyed, including houses.
”We are telling people to flee to higher ground in case of more waves. We’re used to cyclones hitting the island, but this is a new one,” he said.
Geological agencies, including those in Australia and Japan, put the magnitude of the quake at 8,1 while the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) revised its earlier estimate to 8,0.
The initial tremor was followed around seven minutes later by a second one, centred further west, of magnitude 6,7, USGS said.
The Solomon Islands lies on the so-called Pacific ”Ring of Fire” where volcanic activity and earthquakes are relatively common.
The islands are popular with international travellers for scuba diving. Most homes in the mountainous islands are constructed of timber and bamboo, with villagers relying on fishing and logging for employment. – Reuters 2007