Tsunami Inundates Solomons Communities

Waves Leave at Least 20 Dead and Thousands Homeless in Impoverished Archipelago

A local transport boat is grounded on a street outside a market in Gizo, the second-largest town in the Solomon Islands, after a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the area in Western Province on Monday, killing more than 12 people, damaging houses, villages and buildings and leaving more than 2,000 people homeless. (Danny Kennedy -- Reuters)

HONIARA, Solomon Islands, April 2 -- Bodies floated out to sea and thousands of residents camped overnight Tuesday on a hillside above a devastated town in the western Solomon Islands after a tsunami struck without warning, washing away coastal villages and killing at least 20 people. Officials said the death toll was likely to rise.

A wall of water reportedly 30 feet high hit the island of Choiseul and swept a third of a mile inland, while smaller but still destructive waves surged ashore elsewhere in the western part of the impoverished archipelago, causing widespread damage and leaving thousands homeless.

The tsunami was triggered by a magnitude-8 quake shortly after 7:39 a.m. local time Monday, six miles beneath the sea floor and about 25 miles from the western island of Gizo, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake -- the strongest in the Solomons in more than three decades -- set off tsunami alarms from Tokyo to Hawaii and closed beaches along the east coast of Australia more than 1,250 miles away. Lifeguards with bullhorns yelled at surfers to get out of the water at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach.

The danger passed quickly, but officials rejected suggestions that they overreacted, adding that the emergency tested procedures put in place after the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster that left an estimated 230,000 dead or missing in a dozen countries.

The Red Cross reported that about 500 houses in the Solomons were damaged or destroyed, leaving 2,000 people homeless. Many people were afraid to return to the coast. There were more than two dozen aftershocks.

Initial reports from other islands suggested similar or worse levels of destruction, the Red Cross said. Roads were inaccessible and there was heavy damage to infrastructure, including phones and electricity, said Martin Blackgrove, Pacific disaster management coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Located close to the quake's epicenter, Gizo was hit before an alarm could be sounded, Alex Lokopio, premier of the hard-hit Western Province, told Radio New Zealand National. "It shook us very, very strongly, and we were frightened, and all of a sudden the sea was rising up."

Within five minutes, witnesses said, a wall of water up to 16 feet high plowed into the coast, inundating homes, businesses, a hospital, schools and two police stations, and dumping boats into streets in Gizo.

"It was just a noise like an underground explosion," Gizo resident Dorothy Parkinson told Australia's Nine Network television. "The wave came almost instantaneously. Everything that was standing is flattened."

Judith Kennedy said water "right up to your head" swept through town, a popular location for diving. Her father, dive shop owner Danny Kennedy, said Gizo was devastated when the wave subsided. "There are boats in the middle of the road, buildings have completely collapsed and fallen down," he said.

Outlying villages, where many houses are flimsy wooden structures, may have fared worse, based on scattered reports from residents with two-way radios.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare declared a national state of emergency and held meetings with his country's aid donors about getting help.

Debris needed to be cleared before Gizo's airfield could be fully operational, the Red Cross said. Fresh water was in short supply in some areas, while temporary, localized food shortages have also been reported, it said.

Helicopters made the first drops of tents, drinking water and other supplies to the crowd on the hill behind Gizo, said Peter Marshall, the Solomons' deputy police commissioner. The Australian government pledged $1.6 million in emergency aid and said helicopters already in the Solomons as part of a multinational security mission would be available for rescue and relief.