Washington/Wellington – A huge sub-sea quake generated a Pacific tsunami yesterday, killing at least 14 people in American and Western Samoa and sowing fear as far as New Zealand, officials and media reports said.
An official of the US National Park Service said there had been an unknown number of deaths in American Samoa. In nearby Western Samoa, there were also reports of deaths and houses destroyed. In New Zealand, authorities ordered people in low-lying coastal homes and camping grounds to evacuate.
“I can confirm there is damage, I can confirm there are deaths and I can confirm there are casualties,” a Western Samoa police spokeswoman said by phone.
“I cannot say any more at the moment.” A resident of a Western Samoan coastal village, Theresa Falele Dussey, told Radio New Zealand that her house had been destroyed by wave, as were houses and cars in a neabry village.
“Several people have been calling up the radio stations to report high sea swells hitting the costal areas of Fagaloa and Siumu on the eastern side of Upolu island and along to the south,” said Samoalive News.
“School has been called off for the day with tsunami warnings calling for people to head to higher grounds.” The tsunami caused waves of 1.57 metres above normal sea level off American Samoa, according to the Pacific Western Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii, triggering an alert that sent people across the region fleeing for higher ground.
There were unconfirmed reports of even larger waves hitting American Samoa, reaching about 800 metres inland. Experts said the wave was not expected to be as large as the 2004 Asian tsunami, which killed about 230,000 people in 11 countries, but warned people across the region to either head for higher ground or stay away from the coast.
New Zealand authorities expected a wave of about one metre to hit the country’s east coast between 2040 GMT and 2140 GMT.
The Cook Islands and nearby Niue were also on alert but there were no immediate reports of damage from either.
The region is home to tens of thousands of islanders living at sea level.
“The National Park of American Samoa visitor centre and its offices appear to be destroyed completely,” said Holly Bundock, spokeswoman for the National Park Service’s Pacific West Region in Oakland California.
Nathan Becker, an official at Pacific Western Tsunami Warning Center, told MSNBC a tsunami wave can dissipate or grow larger and go all the way across the ocean.
The epicentre of the quake was located 190km (120 miles) southwest of American Samoa, a remote Pacific island, said the US Geological Survey. The USGS earlier said the quake measured 7.9 magnitude. – (Reuters)