A string of fresh earthquakes rocked the western Solomon Islands late on Tuesday and yesterday but there were no early reports of damage or casualties, officials said.
The largest earthquake late on Tuesday had a magnitude of 6.8, followed by seven aftershocks measuring at least 5.0 in the isolated region about 300km west of the capital Honiara.
The latest tremors followed a series of quakes on Monday, with the largest of 7.2 causing a tsunami estimated at nearly 2.5m.
The National Disaster Management Office estimated Tuesday that around 1,000 people — almost a third of the population — had been made homeless on Rendova island by the earthquake and tsunami damage.
Solomon Islands police commissioner Peter Marshall told Radio New Zealand yesterday that no fresh damage had been reported from the 6.8 quake, which the US Geological Service had earlier measured at 6.9.
“We feel we would have heard by now if had that been the case. We have people on the ground up there,” Marshall said. “There have been no reports of any additional injuries, damage or deaths.”
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Derek Sikua visited the affected area yesterday amid criticisms that the distribution of aid had been slow.
“I don’t want this operation to be handicapped by lack of money. I have instructed the Ministry of Finance, money isn’t a problem, go ahead and do what you have to do,” Sikua told emergency workers in the regional center of Munda.
There have been no deaths or major injuries reported from this week’s swarm of quakes, which followed a tsunami in the same region in April 2007 that killed more than 50 people.
Residents said the quake prompted people in coastal areas to flee for higher ground, with the memories of the 2007 disaster still fresh.
Rendova island bore the brunt of Monday’s quakes with some coastal areas inundated by the tsunami and hillsides scarred by large landslides.
One of the worst affected villages on the island was Ratova where 11 houses were washed away in the tsunami, leaving at least 30 people homeless, officials said.
The numerous landslides had also disrupted water supplies to villages on the island, where rice was being distributed to residents yesterday.
On the nearby largely uninhabited island of Tetepare, 10 foreign holidaymakers were evacuated from an eco-tourism center on Monday. None was reported hurt.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion