1,000 homeless after tsunami hits islands
Landslides and a tsunami destroyed the homes of about a third of the population on one of the islands in the Solomons, it emerged today.
But many lives were probably spared as residents with memories of previous disasters fled quickly to higher ground, officials said.
From the air, extensive damage could be seen on a remote western island after a 7.2-magnitude temblor triggered the landslides in the Pacific Solomon Islands on Monday, said disaster management office director Loti Yates.
Officials said no injuries were reported some 30 hours after the biggest in a series of quakes churned a tsunami wave that was up to 10ft high as it smashed into the coast.
However, more than 1,000 people have been affected after some 200 houses were destroyed on Rendova, an island some 190 miles from the capital Honiara. Only 3,600 people live on Rendova.
Photographs taken from police helicopters today showed debris lining the foreshore and damaged houses on the coasts of Rendova and Tetepare, as well as deep scars on hills and cliffs caused by landslides.
Around 200 families were taking shelter in emergency centres on Rendova.
In April 2007, an 8.1 temblor unleashed a tsunami that killed more than 50 people. A quake-churned tsunami that killed more than 200 on nearby Samoa and Tonga in September was another reminder, islanders said.
“People are very sensitive, as a quake conjures up memories, and people immediately begin going to higher ground,” police commissioner Peter Marshall said.
“The fact it was daylight, the isolated nature of the wave and that the landslides were in a relatively sparsely populated area” also helped, he said.
The largest quake – magnitude 7.2 – happened about 9.30am local time and caused the tsunami to hit the coast a short time later.
Since then, at least a dozen other quakes greater than magnitude 5.0 have rocked the earthquake-prone region. The strongest, a magnitude 6.9 aftershock, hit the nation’s western region again yesterday, but there were no immediate reports of fresh damage and no reports of injury.
In the provincial capital Gizo, dive shop owner Danny Kennedy said the general rule was that “if there’s anything more than 20 seconds of shaking or any sea water recedes, head for the hills”.
One village, Retavo, home to about 20 people, was reportedly covered by a wall of sea water up to 10ft high, but no deaths or injuries had been reported.
Emergency food, water and tarpaulins were being shipped in.
