She who stumbles

from the Sydney Morning Herald:

At least 12 people have been killed and more are missing after a tsunami smashed through the Solomon Islands in the wake of a major earthquake today.Amid fears the toll could rapidly rise, with reports of villages being completely destroyed, witnesses spoke of the devastation and of the “strangely frightening” behaviour of the sea as it was sucked from the shoreline, exposing reefs and fish.

With memories of the devastating 2004 Boxing Day tsunami still fresh, the Pacific, from Australia to Hawaii, went on high alert for several hours before officials cancelled the region-wide tsunami alert.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii placed the quake’s centre 350 kilometres north-west of Honiara when it struck at 7.40am local time (6.40am AEST).

The death toll rose to 15 when I checked the news this morning:

RESCUERS fear a dramatic rise in the death toll after a tsunami flattened villages, submerged islands, tossed boats as if they were corks onto roads, and left thousands missing in remote parts of the Solomon Islands yesterday.A 12-year-old girl was among the 15 confirmed dead last night. The toll is expected to rise in the coming days as reports trickle in from remote islands cut off from communications and electricity.

“The wave was up to 10 metres high in some villages,” said a spokesman for the Solomon Islands Government, Alfred Maesulia. “Some villages have been entirely washed away.”

The tsunami, generated by a huge undersea earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale, created shockwaves across the Pacific, closing beaches along the east coast of Australia and stopping ferry services in Sydney, even sending a 10-centimetre wave into Port Kembla.

Amid confusion and claims of overreaction in Australia, the Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, said he had been frustrated at a lack of information. “This was frightening in a sense that we were warned there could’ve been a tsunami, we were trying to work out the magnitude of it but we were shooting blind, and I don’t believe this is good enough.”

The tsunami came at 7.40am local time, an hour after the quake. Waves hit the western part of the archipelago, about 350 kilometres north-west of the capital, Honiara. The island of Choiseul and islands in Western Province were among the worst affected.

…Methinks it’s time for a blog about how the reconstruction effort is going in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, to refresh memories and to better understand the Solomons situation.