Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Samoa hit by Earthquake and Tsunami

With changes in weather patterns and increased natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, many people around the world living on islands have much to worry about. We saw the people of Philippines having to suffer floods caused by Typhoon Ketsana last week, and now Samoans are battling effects of an earthquake and a resultant tsunami.

From The Star..
PAGO PAGO (American Samoa): A powerful Pacific Ocean earthquake spawned towering tsunami waves that swept ashore on Samoa and American Samoa early Tuesday, flattening villages, killing dozens of people and leaving several workers missing at devastated National Park Service facilities.


Cars and people were swept out to sea by the fast-churning water as survivors fled to high ground, where they remained huddled hours later. Signs of devastation were everywhere, with a giant boat getting washed ashore and coming to rest on the edge of a highway and floodwaters swallowing up cars and homes.


The quake, with a magnitude between 8.0 and 8.3, struck around dawn about 200km from Samoa, a South Pacific island nation of about 180,000 people located about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii.

It struck about 190km from neighbouring American Samoa, a US territory of about 65,000 people.

Four tsunami waves of 4-6m high roared ashore soon afterward, reaching up to 1.6km inland. Continue reading..

More pictures from The Star Gallery



Related Stories:
Disaster declaration issued for American Samoa
Hawaii spared effects of deadly tsunami
Japan issues tsunami warning along coast

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:57 PM

    These natural disaster are terrible. Hope the victims recover soon.

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  2. Horrible natural disaster! I am so thankful Malaysia does not suffer from earthquakes, although we had been hit by the tsunami before!

    Btw, no problem accessing your blog. What's the problem?

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  3. and i just felt the tremors from the Sumatra earthquake minutes ago!!

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  4. yea. yet another earthquake hit Padang, Sumatera a good one hour ago. =( click here for more details.

    i realized a little too many natural disasters are happening nowadays. bad sign.

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  5. Why are so many disasters happening withing such a short span of time? And why are they happening mainly in the Pacific?

    (Here come the religious anecdotes...)

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  6. OMG! This shows how angry nature is huh! :( I hope she'll fell better now. If not...

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  7. Mei Teng, we are counting our blessings, aren't we?

    Foong, indeed. My PC is having a problem. Thanks, Foong.

    SK, wow! So, did you evacuate?

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  8. CJ, could this be the beginning of the end?

    MM, our time is up!

    T, I hate to be the kill-joy but I believe times are going to be harder from now on. Oh well...

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  9. you know what happysurfer, it could be. at least there are books that denotes when all these happens, it means our world is coming to an end. kinda sad.

    somehow, i feel it's karma.

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