Tsunami washed some out to sea

A tsunami alert has been cancelled for the Pacific region after a strong quake rocked the Solomon Islands.

A MAJOR 8.0 magnitude earthquake has killed at least five people in the Solomon Islands and generated a tsunami 1.5 metres high that hit homes.

Authorities cancelled tsunami warnings on more distant coasts.

Solomons officials reported that two 1.5m waves hit the western side of Santa Cruz Island, damaging between 70 and 80 homes and properties, said George Herming, a spokesman for the prime minister. Many villagers had headed to higher ground as a precaution, Mr Herming said.

Sirens were heard in Fiji, locals said. "Chaos in the streets of Suva as everyone tries to avoid the tsunami!!" tweeted Ratu Nemani Tebana from the Fiji capital.

The waves reached as far away as Japan, which was hit by a huge tsunami in March 2011 that killed more than 19,000 people.

Japan's Meteorological Agency reported a 20-centimetre wave hitting the Ogasawara island chain south of Tokyo eight hours after the quake struck. Smaller waves were later recorded on Japan's main island of Honshu.

Tom Steinfort (@tomsteinfort) posted these images on Twitter: More images rolling in of traffic mayhem and people heading for higher ground in Fiji in wake of the tsunami warning pic.twitter.com/uj9jaCmF.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre cancelled its regional alert for Pacific-island nations about two and a half hours after the powerful quake struck near the Santa Cruz Islands.

Australian and US monitors said a tsunami wave measuring 91 centimetres washed into the town of Lata, on the main Santa Cruz island of Ndende.

"We can report five dead and three injured," Chris Rogers, a nurse at Lata Hospital, said.  "One of the dead was a male child, three were elderly women and one an elderly man."

Solomon Islands Police Commissioner John Lansley said local police patrols reported that several people were presumed dead, though the reports were still being verified.

"Sadly, we believe some people have lost their lives," he said. "At the moment we potentially know of four, but there may of course be more."

A picture take in Luganville, Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu by reader Alasdair Ross. Picture: Alasdair Ross

One of the people presumed dead was fishing in a dugout canoe when the first wave hit, sweeping him out to sea, Mr Herming said. Officials were searching for his body. Another woman was believed to have drowned when the water rushed into her village.

Four villages on Santa Cruz were hit by the waves, with two facing severe damage, Mr Lansley said. Other areas of the Solomons did not appear to have been seriously affected.

Disaster officials were struggling to reach the remote area after the tsunami flooded the airstrip at the nearest airport and left it littered with debris.

The tsunami formed after a magnitude-8.0 earthquake struck near the town of Lata, on Santa Cruz in Temotu, the easternmost province in the Solomons, about a 3-hour flight from the capital, Honiara. Temotu has a population of around 30,000.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said a tsunami of about a metre was measured in Lata wharf. Smaller waves were recorded in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

This picture of school children seeking higher ground in the Solomon Islands has been posted on Twitter: "School kids moved to higher ground after SI tsunami warning," said Bec McNair. http://twitter.yfrog.com/h6588nyj Picture: Twitter/@benmcnair

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 heard the waves swamped some smaller islands, although he was not aware of any deaths or serious injuries. He said it was difficult to contact people because mobile phone coverage was patchy in the region.

In Honiara, the warnings prompted residents to flee for higher ground.

"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," Herming said.

The 8.0 quake struck just off the Solomon islands. Map: USGS

Atenia Tahu, who works for the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corp. in Honiara, said most people were remaining calm.

"People around the coast and in the capital are ringing in and trying to get information from us and the National Disaster Office and are slowly moving up to higher ground," Tahu said. "But panic? No, no, no, people are not panicking."

Dr Rooney Jagilly, the medical superintendent at the National Referral Hospital in Honiara, said the hospital asked about half its 200 patients to leave and stay with families or friends as a precautionary measure because the hospital is located near the shoreline. Those patients who weren't mobile enough to move stayed, but the hospital remained ready to evacuate them.

Dr Jagilly said there had been no flooding and he hoped the hospital would return to normal Thursday. He said his staff was ready to mobilise to Santa Cruz because the small hospital there has no doctor after the previous one recently died.

An official at the disaster management office in Vanuatu said there were no reports of damage or injuries there.

The US Geological Survey said the quake struck the Santa Cruz Islands, which have been rocked by a series of strong tremors over the past week, at a depth of 28.7 kilometres.

About 20 aftershocks were recorded, including one at 6.6-magnitude.

"Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated," the Hawaii-based Pacific warning centre said after the 8.0 quake, before lifting its tsunami alert for several island nations.

Lata Hospital director of nursing Augustine Bilve said some patients were evacuated to higher ground to prepare for any injured from the villages along the coast.

Settlements did not appear to be seriously damaged in the quake, he said, but added: "We were told that after the shaking, waves came to the villages."

More than 50 people were killed and thousands lost their homes in April 2007 when a magnitude-8.1 quake hit the western Solomon Islands, sending waves crashing into coastal villages. The Solomons comprise more than 200 islands with a population of about 552,000 people. They lie on the "Ring of Fire" - an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim and where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur.

Here is a list of the greatest earthquakes since the beginning of the 20th century, according to the moment magnitude scale.

• May 22, 1960: A 9.5-magnitude earthquake, the biggest ever recorded, kills 5,700 people in Chile while the tsunami it triggers leaves 130 dead in Japan and 61 in Hawaii.
• March 27, 1964: An earthquake measuring 9.2 in southern Alaska followed by a tsunami kills more than 100 people.
• December 26, 2004: A 9.1-magnitude undersea quake off Sumatra island causes a tsunami that kills 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.
• March 11, 2011: A 9.0 magnitude quake triggers a devastating tsunami off northeast Japan, leaving some 19,000 people dead or missing and crippling the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the world's worst atomic disaster in 25 years.
• November 4, 1952: More than 2,300 people are killed when a 9.0-magnitude quake occurs on Siberia's Kamchatka peninsula, causing a tsunami felt as far as Chile and Peru.
• February 27, 2010: A huge 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocks Chile, killing at least 450 people and triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific.
• January 31, 1906: An earthquake measuring 8.8 off the coasts of Colombia and Ecuador causes a tsunami that kills about 1,000 people.
• February 4, 1965: An 8.7-magnitude earthquake shakes the Aleutian Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean, causing damage but no deaths.
• March 28, 2005: An 8.6-magnitude quake on Indonesia's Nias island off Sumatra leaves at least 900 dead.
• March 9, 1957: An earthquake measuring 8.6 hits the Andreanof Islands in Alaska, generating a tsunami reaching as far as Hawaii, causing damage but no casualties.

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