Earthquakes and a tsunami that slammed the Solomon Islands sent hillsides crashing down and inundated homes, but residents’ memories of earlier disasters probably helped prevent any casualties, officials and residents said yesterday.
No injuries were reported some 30 hours after the biggest in a series of quakes churned a tsunami wave that was up to 3m high as it plowed into a remote region in the nation’s west on Monday.
Authorities were still trying to reach hard-hit areas on Rendova and Tetepare islands and to account for an unknown number of people believed to have fled their villages, police commissioner Peter Marshall told said.
PHOTO: AFP/NATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT OFFICE
Photographs taken from police helicopters yesterday 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, he said.
The largest quake — magnitude 7.2 — happened about 9:30am on Monday and caused the tsunami to hit the coast a short time later. At least nine other quakes greater than magnitude 5 have rocked the earthquake-prone region since.
Residents said past disasters made them better prepared this time.
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, locals said.
“People are very sensitive, as a quake conjures up memories and people immediately begin going to higher ground,” 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.
In the provincial capital Gizo, dive shop owner Danny Kennedy said the general rule is that “if there’s anything more than 20 seconds of shaking or any sea water recedes, head for the hills.”
A police boat patrolled yesterday to check the coastline, where many homes are at sea level, making them vulnerable to tsunamis, National Disaster Management Office spokesman Julian Makaa said.
No casualties had been reported so far, he said.
One village, Retavo, home to about 20 people, was reportedly completely inundated by a wall of sea water up to 3m high, but Makaa said no deaths or injuries had been reported there.
Another disaster management official, Loti Yates, said earlier at least 16 houses were destroyed and 32 damaged in Baniata village on Rendova, an island some 300km from the capital, Honiara, where about 3,600 people live.
Emergency food, water and tarpaulins were being shipped in.
The Solomon Islands lie on the “Ring of Fire” — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim and where about 90 percent of the world’s quakes occur.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS