Samoa(America), October 01: First came the shaking, so violent that whole houses rocked back and forth. Then, after five or 10 minutes, came the massive waves of water that smashed villages, tossed cars, boats and trees, and carried away people who screamed amid the roaring torrents.
Disaster officials from across the South Pacific flew food, medicine and temporary morgues to the Samoas, where search parties combed muddy swamps, coastlines and shattered buildings for survivors Wednesday after a powerful earthquake and tsunami killed at least 119 people.
Survivors fled to higher ground on the islands of Samoa and American Samoa after the magnitude 8.0 quake struck at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 1748 GMT) Tuesday. The residents then were engulfed by four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high that reached up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland.
The Samoan capital, Apia, was a muddy mess of debris. Cars and boats — many battered and upside down and dropped between palm trees — littered the coastline. All sorts of debris, from spoons to chunks of masonry weighing several tons, was strewn among the splintered remains of buildings.
Suavai Ioane of Voutosi first endured the violent earthquake that shook his village of 600 people.
“After the shaking finished, about five or 10 minutes after, the wave very quickly came over us,” said Ioane, who was carried by a wave about 80 yards (meters) inland.
The bodies of eight people were found in a nearby swamp, Ioane said.
Some islanders had enough warning to flee the tsunami. But a warning system run by the Global Security and Crisis Management Unit failed to evaluate the tsunami’s impact in real time because of a hardware failure.
Another strong underwater earthquake rocked western Indonesia on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the Samoan quake, briefly triggering a tsunami alert for countries along the Indian Ocean. The 7.6-magnitude quake toppled buildings, cut power and triggered a landslide on Sumatra island, and at least 75 people were reported killed. Experts said the seismic events were not related.
The quake was centered about 120 miles south of the islands of Samoa, which has about 220,000 people, and American Samoa, a U.S. territory of 65,000. Military transports ferried medical personnel, food, water, medicines and other supplies to the stricken islands.
President Barack Obama declared a major disaster for American Samoa.
Acting New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English said tents, stretchers, the temporary morgue and a body identification team were sent to Samoa on a Hercules transport plane after a “specific request” from local officials, who are “are very concerned about the growing death toll.”
A Coast Guard C-130 plane loaded with aid and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials flew from Hawaii to American Samoa’s capital of Pago Pago, where debris had been cleared from runways to allow for emergency planes to land.
In Pago Pago, the streets and fields were filled with debris, mud, overturned cars and several boats. Several buildings in the city — just a few feet above sea level — were flattened. Power was expected to be out in some areas for up to a month.
Water service has been restored to many villages, but power is still out in most areas. More than 1,000 people spent the night in 15 emergency shelters.
Hundreds of people asked American Samoa’s radio stations to announce the names of their missing loved ones. Broadcasters urged listeners to contact their families immediately.
Samoa National Disaster Management committee member Filomina Nelson told New Zealand’s National Radio the number of dead in her country had reached 83 — mostly elderly and young children. At least 30 people were killed on American Samoa, Gov. Togiola Tulafono said.
The overall death toll was expected to rise as more stricken areas are searched.
Authorities in Tonga, southwest of the Samoas, confirmed at least six dead and four missing, according to English.
Joey Cummings of radio station 93KHJ in Pago Pago told the BBC that he watched from a balcony as a 15-foot tsunami wave struck, and “the air was filled with screams.”
He yelled for people to run uphill, “but they just ran down the street away from the wave rather than make a sharp left and up the steep mountain just feet away.”
A “river of mud” carried trees, cars, buses and boats past his building, which is practically at sea level, Cummings told the BBC.
Some people searched for trapped survivors, he said, but others looted stores. Bodies were stacked in the back of pickup trucks, he added.
Alex Godinet, chief of staff for American Samoa’s congressional delegate, said his “whole house and everything was shaking.” When he went to the nearby village of Leone, the tsunami wave had already struck and receded.
“People, elders were trying to crawl all over the place, crawl up to higher place, higher areas,” he told NBC’s “Today” show.
A New Zealand P3 Orion maritime surveillance plane searched for survivors off the coast of Samoa.
In Carson, Calif., High Chief Loa Pele Faletogo, president of the Samoan Federation of America, comforted Samoans in the U.S. who came to him seeking news of their relatives. The chief said he learned the body of one of his cousins, in her 60s, was found floating along the shore.
All 65 employees at the National Park of American Samoa were accounted for, said Holly Bundock, spokeswoman for the National Park Service’s Pacific West Region in Oakland, Calif. The park service has 13 permanent workers and between 30 and 50 volunteers, depending on the time of year.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs said three Australians were among the dead. The British Foreign Office said one Briton was missing and presumed dead.
“So much has gone. So many people are gone,” said a visibly shaken Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi as he flew from New Zealand to Apia. “I’m so shocked, so saddened by all the loss.”
He said his village of Lepa was destroyed. Although the alarm sounded on the radio and gave people time to get to higher ground, “not everyone escaped,” he added.
The earthquake and tsunami were not on the same scale as the 2004 disaster in the Indian Ocean that killed more than 230,000 in a dozen countries across Asia.
Although the quakes in the Samoas and Indonesia struck within 24 hours of each other, experts said there was no link between them.
—Agencies