Tsunami 'flattened' villages
2007-04-02 14:54
Honiara - Witnesses to the tsunami that pounded into the Solomons Islands early on Monday described how the towering waves swept over tiny villages before surging inland.
A wall of water, triggered by a 8.0-magnitude undersea earthquake, swamped Gizo, capital of the western province popular with tourists for its pristine beaches and diving, reported locals.
"It's a catastrophe," said Gizo resident Dorothy Parkinson.
"(There was) very little warning. It was just a noise like an underground explosion and the next thing it just began rocking the whole hill. The wave came almost instantaneously," she told the Nine Network.
"Everything that was standing is flattened. Everything's on the ground smashed."
Reports said thousands of residents were hiding in the hills in the area as authorities sent aircraft and boats to the western province to assess the damage.
'Unsure of what to do'
"The sea is rising up to five metres high. The houses are sunk," ferry driver Nixon Silus told Australian radio.
"All the houses on the islands are under water and all the houses are being pulled down and most of their kitchen utensils are floating on the sea."
Silus said the islanders were unsure of what to do when the giant wave hit.
"Some of the people ran out to the bush, some of the people on the islands don't know where to go," he said.
Police quoted witnesses saying waves washed up to 500m inland and destroyed houses, triggered landslides and forced residents to evacuate.
Town 'badly damaged'
Robert Iroga, editor of the Solomon Star newspaper, said he had received reports from some local people of bodies "floating in the sea".
He said that one island close to the provincial airport appeared to have disappeared under the water.
"Unconfirmed reports we receive seem to suggest that the island was entirely washed away and people are floating in the sea."
Iroga, who is based in Honiara, said thousands of people could be affected by the tsunami.
"It's a time of year when a lot of people are staying in the villages, the schools are on a break," he told ABC radio.
There were fears for tourists although chief government spokesperson Alfred Maesulia put their number at fewer than 100.
Kerrie Kennedy, an Australian who lives in the Solomons, spoke to her husband in Gizo who said the town had been badly damaged.
She said: "I don't know exactly where it went, but I heard one description of a 10-foot wave that had gone through.
"There are houses destroyed - our next door neighbour's house has been flattened, whereas our house hasn't been.
'Still shaking'
"I don't think there's anyone who hasn't been affected by it.
"The earthquake hasn't stopped. It's still shaking now.
"Most people are not willing to go into their houses at the moment, they're sitting outside because they're waiting to see what happens."
In Honiara, news of the tsunami sparked a brief panic, with people running screaming from the waterfront.