April 03, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1428

HONIARA, April 2: A powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the tiny Solomon Islands on Monday, swallowing entire villages and killing at least 12 people with many more missing.

The shallow quake, with a magnitude of at least 8, levelled buildings and damaged a hospital on Gizo island northwest of the Solomons capital, Honiara. A tsunami that witnesses described as the height of a two-storey building sucked homes into the sea as thousands of panicked residents fled for higher ground.

At least seven people died in Gizo, many trapped in their homes when waves swept through the town. Other bodies could be seen but not reached because of huge waves crashing ashore, the government said in a statement.

“The wave was up to 10-metres high in some villages,” Solomon Islands’ chief government spokesman Alfred said. “Some villages have been entirely washed away.”

The quake struck 350 km northwest of Honiara during the morning (2040 GMT on Sunday) and sparked a tsunami alert around the Pacific.

Beaches along Australia’s east coast were closed and ferry services halted in Sydney Harbour amid fears of a repeat of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami disaster. Roads in Australia’s north were gridlocked as residents fled the coast.

The alert was lifted about nine hours later, with damage confined to the immediate area around the quake.

Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said the disaster could have been worse if it had happened only a few hours earlier, in darkness, when more people would have been asleep.

“My heart goes out to all of you in this very trying time,” he said in national radio address on Monday evening.

Government and Red Cross disaster teams are taking tents, food and water to the area, Sogavare said. Australia, which said the wave also hit the western Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville, has offered $1.6 million in aid.—Reuters