Over 100 dead as tsunami hits Samoas
Towering tsunami waves spawned by a powerful earthquake swept ashore on Samoa and American Samoa, flattening villages, killing over a hundred and leaving many workers missing at devastated National Park Service facilities.
Cars and people were swept out to sea by the fast-churning waters as survivors fled to high ground, where they remained huddled hours later.
Hampered by power and communications outages, officials struggled to assess the casualties and damage.
The quake, with a magnitude between 8.0 and 8.3, struck around dawn about 32 kilometers below to ocean floor, 190 kilometers from American Samoa, a US territory that is home to 65,000 people, and 200 kilometers from Samoa.
Mike Reynolds, superintendent of the National Park of American Samoa, was quoted as saying four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 1/2 to 6 meters) high roared ashore soon afterward, reaching up to 1.6 kilometre inland.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a general alert from American Samoa to New Zealand; Tonga suffered some coastal damage from 4-metre waves.
An unspecified number of fatalities and injuries were reported in the Samoan village of Talamoa. New Zealander Graeme Ansell said the beach village of Sau Sau Beach Fale was leveled.
