PAGO PAGO, American Samoa - Towering tsunami waves spawned by a powerful earthquake swept ashore on two South Pacific island chains early Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and leaving dozens of others missing at devastated National Park Service facilities.
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 midway between Samoa and American Samoa.
Mike Reynolds, superintendent of the National Park of American Samoa, was quoted as saying four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet high roared ashore soon afterward, reaching up to a mile inland. Holly Bundock, spokeswoman for the National Park Service's Pacific West Region in Oakland, Calif., spoke with him from his vantage point under a coconut tree uphill from Pago Pago Harbor; he reported that the park's visitor center and offices appeared to have been destroyed.
Bundock said Reynolds and another park service staffer had been able to locate only 20 percent of the park's 13 to 15 employees and 30 to 50 volunteers. The National Park of American Samoa is the only national park south of the equator, a scenic expanse of reefs, picturesque beaches, tropical forests and wildlife that include flying foxes and sea turtles.
Residents in both Samoa and American Samoa reported being shaken awake by the quake, which lasted two to three minutes, then fleeing uphill out of fear of a tsunami. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a general alert from American Samoa to New Zealand, warning of the prospect of a "destructive" wave.
The ramifications of the tsunami could be felt thousands of miles away, with federal officials saying strong currents and dangerous waves were forecast from California to Washington state. No major flooding was expected, however.
Mase Akapo, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in American Samoa, said at least 14 people were killed in four different villages on the main island of Tutuila, while an unspecified number of people died neighboring Samoa, with reports of people and cars swept out to sea. Thousands of people were still huddled on high ground hours after the initial quake, which was followed by at three aftershocks of at least 5.6 magnitude.
An unspecified number of fatalities and injuries reported in the Samoan village of Talamoa. New Zealander Graeme Ansell said the beach village of Sau Sau Beach Fale was leveled.
"It was very quick. The whole village has been wiped out," Ansell told New Zealand's National Radio from a hill near Samoa's capital, Apia. "There's not a building standing. We've all clambered up hills, and one of our party has a broken leg. There will be people in a great lot of need 'round here."
Schools and businesses were closed, with the Samoan capital virtually deserted.
"Our house has been taken by the tsunami and we have lost everything," Teresa Sulili Dusi told National Radio, adding that "everything dropped on the floor and we thought the house was going to go down as well. Thank God, it didn't."
Local media said they had reports of some landslides in the Solosolo region of the main Samoan island of Upolu and damage to plantations in the countryside outside Apia.
American Samoa Gov. Togiola Tulafono was at his Honolulu office assessing the situation but was having difficulty getting information, said Filipp Ilaoa, deputy director of the office.
"There is some water damage to residences," Ilaoa said. "To what extent and how much, and how many villages are effected, that is a mystery at this time."
Rescue workers found a scene of destruction and debris with cars overturned or stuck in mud. The staff of the port ran to higher ground, and police soon came by, telling residents to get inland. Several students were seen ransacking a gas station/convenience store.
In Fagatogo, water reached the waterfront town's meeting field and covered portions of the main highway, which was plagued by rock slides.
Rear Adm. Manson Brown, Coast Guard commander for the Pacific region, said the Coast Guard is in the early stages of assessing what resources to send to American Samoa.
"We're going to assume, because a tsunami of this sort is probably going to wreak havoc in the port, we're going to have to get additional personnel and supplies down through the airport," Brown told reporters in Honolulu.
The earthquake and tsunami were big, but not on the same large scale of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 150,000 across Asia the day after Christmas in 2004, said tsunami expert Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle.
The 2004 earthquake was at least 10 times stronger than the 8.0 to 8.3 measurements being reported for Tuesday's quake, Atwater said. It's also a different style of earthquake than the one that hit in 2004.
The tsunami hit American Samoa about 25 minutes after the quake, which is similar to the travel time in 2004, Atwater said. The big difference is there were more people in Indonesia at risk than in Samoa. |