HONIARA, Solomon Islands - A powerful undersea earthquake today in the South Pacific sent a tsunami several yards high crashing into the Solomon Islands, devastating at least one village, officials and residents said.
Police and residents said a wave about 10 feet high struck the western town of Gizo, inundating buildings and causing widespread destruction.
A man who answered the telephone at the Gizo police station said there were initial reports that eight people, six of them children, had been killed by the tsunami but those numbers were still unconfirmed. The phone cut out abruptly before the man gave his name.
Gizo resident Judith Kennedy said water "right up to your head" swept through the town.
"All the houses near the sea were flattened," she said.
"The downtown area is a very big mess from the tsunami and the earthquake," she added. "A lot of houses have collapsed. The whole town is still shaking" from aftershocks.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude-8.0 and struck at 7:39 a.m. about 6 miles beneath the sea floor, 217 miles northwest of the capital, Honiara.
The Pacific region from Australia to Hawaii went on high alert for several hours after the quake struck between the islands of Bougainville and New Georgia, though officials canceled a region-wide tsunami warning after the danger period had passed.
Gizo, a regional center, is just 25 miles from the earthquake's epicenter.
Another witness in the town, dive shop owner Danny Kennedy, estimated the height of the wave at 10 feet.
"I'm driving down the street - there are boats in the middle of the road, buildings have completely collapsed and fallen down," he said.
"We're just trying to mobilize water and food, and shelter for people at the moment because ... in the town alone there's going to be between 2,000-3,000 homeless. It's not a very good scene at the moment."
Police Sgt. Godfrey Abiah said in Honiara that police in Gizo had received warning about a possible tsunami and were helping people leave the town for higher ground when the wave hit.
"We have lost radio contact with the two police stations down there and we're not getting any clear picture from down there," he said.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Deli Oso, said the quake was felt in Honiara but there were no reports of any damage.
