Solomons quake, tsunami 'wiped out' villages, officials say - UPDATE |
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Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:55
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- (Adds details throughout including lifting of tsunami warning in region)HONIARA (XFN-ASIA) - A powerful undersea earthquake unleashed a tsunami that pounded the Solomon Islands, flattening villages and killing at least six people and sparking scenes of panic, officials said.Witnesses said the wall of water triggered by the 8.0-magnitude quake was up to five meters highand swamped towns, flattened houses and washed away buildings in the west of the archipelago.'Some villages are completely wiped out,' Fred Fakari, the chairman of the Solomons National Disaster Council, told journalists in the capital Honiara.'Unconfirmed reports have placed the number of dead at about six and I think we are expecting more,' Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told CNN. 'It's a very trying time for us.'He said patchy communications made it difficult to assess the scale of the casualties and damage in Gizo, a popular tourist and diving spot that is just 40 kilometers from the epicenter.'Most of the islands are low-lying, and the extent of the damage is yet to be known,' he said, adding that a team from his office, the Red Cross and the police were headed to the area.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for the region which it later cancelled. Governments from Australia to New Caledonia and the Northern Marianas evacuated schools and ordered coastal residents to move to higher ground.The tsunami warning, cancelled after seven hours, covered the Solomons, Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Nauru, Chuuk, New Caledonia, Pohnpei, Kosrae, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, with countries as far away as Japan on alert.But while no damage was immediately reported elsewhere in the Pacific, the western Solomon Islands bore the brunt of the tsunami generated by the shallow quake that struck at 7.40 am (2040 GMT Sunday).Chief government spokesman Alfred Maesulia said the tsunami had caused millions of dollars worth of damage around Gizo.'In some coastal villages, waves of up to 10 meters high swept those villages and destroyed houses and properties,' said Maesulia, whose estimate exceeded those of witnesses.Robert Iroga, editor of the Solomon Star newspaper, said he had received reports from locals of bodies 'floating in the sea' near Gizo.He said one island close to the provincial airport had been totally swamped by the wave. Officials confirmed the airport was closed.'Unconfirmed reports we receive seem to suggest that the island was entirely washed away and people are floating in the sea,' Iroga said.The Solomons government disaster council held an emergency meeting but it decided not to declare a state of emergency for lack of information. It was to meet again later.The Solomon Islands, 2,575 kilometers east of Australia, has a little over half a million people living on dozens of islands.It is part of the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' where continental plates meet and frequently experiences volcanic and seismic activity.The US Geological Survey reported a series of aftershocks measuring up to 6.7.afp/mas
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Tsunami causes damage after powerful quake in Solomon Islands 