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Powerful quake strikes near Solomon Islands
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Powerful quake strikes near Solomon Islands
AFP - Tuesday, January 5
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HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AFP) - – About 500 homes were destroyed or damaged when a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked the Solomon Islands on Monday, causing panic but no major injuries, disaster officials said.
The National Disaster Management Office said it was possible that thousands of people could be homeless, but an exact assessment could not be made until ground parties were able to reach remote islands on Tuesday.
The US Geological Survey said the epicentre was 103 kilometres (65 miles) from the earthquake-prone island town of Gizo in the western Pacific archipelago, and local officials said it triggered a small tsunami.
It was the largest of a swarm of tremors centred on the area, ignited by a 6.5 magnitude quake on Monday morning and with eight strong aftershocks between magnitude 4.9 and 5.7 over the following 12 hours.
"There are 500 homes that have been affected but not all have been totally destroyed," Disaster Management Office spokesman Julian Makaa told AFP after officials took a reconnaissance flight over remote islands near the epicentre.
The average home in the Solomon Islands would house four to five people.
A patrol boat carrying water, food and tarpaulins was dispatched from the capital Honiara for the worst affected areas of Rendova island and Marova Lagoon about 300 kilometres (180 miles) away, Makaa said.
"The earthquake caused a small wave, and a few people suffered minor injuries as they ran away from the shore in panic," Makaa said.
The Disaster Management Office had also received radio reports that some tourists received minor injuries on the conservation island of Tetepare and there were houses destroyed at Marovo Lagoon, both near Rendova.
"A patrol boat will be sent to the area with water, food and tarpaulins as a precaution," Makaa said, adding residents on the outer islands have been warned "to remain alert for sea and tide fluctuations" as aftershocks continue.
An 8.0-magnitude earthquake in the same area nearly three years ago killed 52 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced thousands.
The Hawaii-based tsunami warning centre said the latest earthquake was powerful enough to have been destructive along coasts near the epicentre but there was no wider threat.
"No tsunami threat exists for other coastal areas in the Pacific although some other areas may experience small, non-destructive, sea-level changes lasting up to several hours," the centre said in a bulletin.
Gizo, on Ghizo island, is the second largest town in the Solomon Islands with a population of around 6,000.
It is about 360 kilometres northwest of Honiara which lies on the island of Guadalcanal, where residents said they felt shakes but there was no damage.
Geoscience Australia seismologist Clive Collins said the main quake, which was estimated at 7.0 magnitude by Australian seismologists, was probably about 80 kilometres from the nearest land.
Further south, in earthquake prone New Zealand, tremors of 4.3 and 3.5 were recorded over the past 24 hours. There was another earthquake of 4.9 off the coast of Tonga but there were no reports of damage.
Like much of the Pacific, the Solomons regularly experiences large earthquakes and lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire which generates most of the world's major tremors.
Gizo harbour lost most of it wharves and jetties in the 2007 quake and subsequent tsunami which was officially put at five metres high but with some reports of a 10-metre-high wall of water.
On September 29 last year, a devastating tsunami swept along coasts in the Pacific islands of Samoa and Tonga, killing 186 people and wiping out entire villages.
Villages and resorts in Samoa, American Samoa and northern Tonga were flattened by the giant waves generated by the massive earthquake, the strongest in a nearly a century.
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