SEVERAL people were killed when tsunami waves generated by a major earthquake slammed into the Solomon Islands, damaging villages, as warnings were triggered across the Pacific.
At least five people died after the 8.0 magnitude quake struck near the remote Santa Cruz Islands in the Solomons at a depth of 28.7km. Two powerful aftershocks of 6.4 and 6.6 magnitude were also recorded.
“We can report five dead and three injured. One of the dead was a male child, three were elderly women and one an elderly man,” said Chris Rogers, a registered nurse at Lata Hospital in the Santa Cruz Islands.
Local officials reported two 1.5-metre waves hit the western side of Santa Cruz Island, damaging between 60 and 70 homes in at least four villages, said George Herming, a spokesman for the prime minister.
“At this stage, authorities are still trying to establish the exact number and extent of damage. Communication to Santa Cruz Island is difficult due to the remoteness of the island," he said
Local officials reported two 1.5-metre waves hit the western side of Santa Cruz Island, damaging between 60 and 70 homes in at least four villages, said George Herming, a spokesman for the prime minister.
“At this stage, authorities are still trying to establish the exact number and extent of damage. Communication to Santa Cruz Island is difficult due to the remoteness of the island," he said.
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Two of the four villages on Santa Cruz suffered severe damage, said Solomon Islands Police Commissioner John Lansley. Other areas of the Solomons did not appear to have been seriously affected.
Solomon Islands Red Cross secretary general Joanne Zoleveke said she had been told at least three villages were hit.
“In the Solomon Islands when we talk about villages there can be anything from 10 to 30 houses,” she said.
“We have received a lot of information about houses washed away but we haven't heard about any deaths as yet. That is what we are waiting for.”
Earthquake monitoring agencies earlier said a wave measuring about a metre had been recorded at Lata on Santa Cruz, the main island in the eastern Temotu province, which has a population of about 10,000.
Vanuatu and New Caledonia also reported rising sea levels, before a region-wide tsunami alert was lifted.
Locals in the Solomons capital Honiara, 580 kilometres from the epicentre, said earlier the quake was not felt there but some villages had been destroyed, according to a hospital director.
“The information we are getting is that some villages west and south of Lata along the coast have been destroyed, although we cannot confirm this yet,” the director at Lata Hospital said.
Richard Dapo, a school principal on an island near Santa Cruz, said he lives inland but has been fielding calls from families on the coast whose homes have been damaged by the waves.
“I try to tell the people living on the coastline, 'Move inland, find a higher place. Make sure to keep away from the sea. Watch out for waves,”' he said.
He said he'd heard the waves had swamped some smaller islands, although he was not aware of any deaths or serious injuries at this point. He said it was difficult to contact people because cellphone coverage is patchy in the region.
In the Solomons capital of Honiara, tsunami warnings prompted residents to flee for higher ground, while ships also moved to open water to avoid potential waves.
“People are still standing on the hills outside of Honiara just looking out over the water, trying to observe if there is a wave coming in,” Mr Herming said earlier.
The tsunami warnings prompted warnings in nations as far away as Fiji for residents to evacuate to higher ground.
Sirens were heard in Fiji while the alert remained in place, locals said. “Chaos in the streets of Suva as everyone tries to avoid the tsunami!!” tweeted Ratu Nemani Tebana from the Fiji capital Suva.
The tsunami warning was initially issued for the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, and Wallis and Futuna.
New Zealand was also on guard but monitors said there was no threat to Australia.
The tsunami warnings were later cancelled.
In 2007 a tsunami following an 8.0-magnitude earthquake killed at least 52 people in the Solomons and left thousands homeless.
Today's huge earthquake was another reminder of the power of the volatile zone of volcanic instability that encircles the Pacific Ocean.
The so-called Ring of Fire reaches from Indonesia to the coast of Chile in a 40,000 kilometre arc of seismic violence that unleashes earthquakes and volcanoes around the Pacific rim almost every day.
Most of history's deadliest quakes, tremors and volcanic explosions have occurred along this weak line in the Earth's crust, including the eruptions of Krakatoa near Java and Mount St Helens in the United States, as well as the massive quake that sparked the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.
The Ring of Fire stretches along the western coast of the Americas and through the island nations of the South Pacific and on through Southeast Asia.
It is an interconnected circle of fault lines - cracks in the Earth's hardened upper crust - which are under constant pressure from super-hot molten rock beneath.
Occasionally the fissures give in and explode, creating volcanic eruptions and causing the land on either side of the fault line to shift and buckle violently, triggering earthquakes.
The fault lines are actually the margins of huge plates of rock on which the continents sit. These plates are in constant motion.
The 9.3-magnitude quake that struck Indonesia on December 26, 2004 unleashed tsunamis that crashed into Indian Ocean shorelines, killing more than 220,000 people.
The world's largest-ever registered tremor, the 9.5-magnitude Valdiva quake, shook Chile in 1960 and churned up a tsunami that killed scores in Japan and Hawaii.
A 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake off Japan in 2011 triggered a tsunami that left about 19,000 people dead or missing, and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the world's worst atomic disaster in 25 years.
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