Update: Large Tsunami Hits Solomon Islands

Breaking Earth News
Solomon Islands, South Pacific

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HONIARA, Solomon Islands - A bone-rattling undersea earthquake sparked a tsunami that sent 10-foot-high waves crashing into parts of the Solomon Islands on Monday, wiping out one village and killing at least 13 people. The death toll was expected to rise.

Large waves struck the western town of Gizo, inundating buildings and causing widespread destruction within five minutes of the earthquake.
"There wasn't any warning — the warning was the earth tremors," Alex Lokopio, the premier of the Solomon's Western Province, told New Zealand's National Radio. "It shook us very, very strongly and we were frightened, and all of a sudden the sea was rising up."

Julian Makaa, spokesman for the Solomons National Disaster Management Office, said numerous villages in the country's remote west were reporting people being swept away as waves plowed through their communities.