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The Solomon Islands declared a state of emergency after an earthquake and a tsunami struck, flattening villages causing widespread panic and killing at least 20 people with the toll expected to rise.
A powerful magnitude 8.1 earthquake and tsunami hit the Solomons yesterday, and people from Honiara to Australia fled for the safety of higher ground.
Kevin McCue, the Director of the Australian Seismological Centre, said there was a strong chance more quakes would follow in the coming days on an undersea trench west of the Solomons.
"This region typically has double earthquakes, six sets of them since 1907," McCue said, adding residents and rescue teams should be on alert for more quakes of up to magnitude 7.5.
A New Zealander holidaying in the Solomon Islands told last night how the ground shook beneath his feet after the quake struck.
Garth MacIntyre was at the Agnes Lodge in Munda, about 80km away from the epicentre of the magnitude-8 earthquake.
He was part of a group preparing to go to Gizo to dive when the earthquake hit about 7.30am.
A spokeswoman for Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said the death toll had reached 12 and was likely to rise. Two children were among the victims.
But the aid agency World Vision said 25 people were killed in Gizo after a 3m tsunami hit the town yesterday morning.
World Vision said it was unclear how many people were injured but estimated between 50,000 to 60,000 had been affected. There were reports of villages being destroyed.
Mr MacIntyre, 44, was inside a small hut when the ground started shaking.
"We are used to earthquakes in Wellington but this blew our socks off," he said. "Everything was rocking and rolling ... stuff was flying around and everything was shaken to pieces.
"It was a real mess. It was pretty scary stuff. You couldn't walk on the ground, it was so severe you just stumbled over. It lasted about 30 seconds so it went on for a long time."
He said the panicking locals were running around in disarray.
Realising the flimsy wooden structures didn't provide much protection, Mr MacIntyre and his three companions ran to an open space.
"That's where we stayed until the tremor finished. It was a real adrenalin rush and pretty daunting."
He said he didn't fear for his life as the ground was trembling, but afterwards he realised he could have been killed.
"About half an hour later we noticed the water recede a bit and after seeing the 2004 tsunami we knew it was the start of a tsunami. The locals didn't know what was going on so we moved [about 50 of them] to higher ground."
A surge of water about 1.5m high came in.
"It wasn't a big wave, but just a wall of water coming straight in and inundating everything."
Mr MacIntyre decided to stay on the beach and take some photographs.
"Call me stupid, but I wanted to stay and get some photos."
The water had since returned to its normal level and a surge of small after-shocks had continued until about 5pm last night, he said.
"I've been in situations like this before. I always seem to end up in hot-spots. It's about keeping calm and collected."
In 2005, Mr MacIntyre and fellow Kiwi Cam McLeay were ambushed by rebel troops in Uganda as they tried to go up the Nile River. Their British friend Steve Willis was killed in the attack.
Last night witnesses spoke of the frightening way the sea was sucked from the shoreline, exposing reefs and fish.
Sally Lavery of the Paradise Lodge Hotel at Gizo said many residents were waiting on high ground above the town in case more tsunamis hit.
"The sea was coming up after the earthquake, it just reached the road.
"Some of the people are still walking around in the street shopping, but most of the people just stay up here on the hill. We don't know what's going to happen."
Hospital worker Ian Maneatu Laska said by phone from Gizo that bodies were "seen floating at sea this afternoon".
"Local rescue groups were unable to retrieve them as huge waves prevented rescue efforts," Mr Laska was reported as saying on Mr Sogavare's website.
Police say the hardest hit Western Province has hundreds of low-lying islands and early witness accounts, eerily similar to those that followed the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, suggest wide-scale devastation.
The premier of Choiseul Province, Jackson Kiloe, told the Sydney Morning Herald that at least one village had lost its hospital, with local health centres and schools also devastated.
He described the "strangely frightening" behaviour of the sea as it was sucked away from the shoreline, exposing reefs and the sea bed, before the tsunami rolled in.
Last night Dorothy Parkinson, who has lived on Gizo for 30 years, said when the tsunami hit it sounded "like an underground explosion".
"We have never had an earthquake as severe as this."
She was worried about how people would cope because the local airport had been severely damaged.
The New Zealand High Commissioner in Honiara, Deborah Panckhurst, said last night that 185 New Zealanders were registered with the high commission.
Contact had been made with all except for four or five people, who were in the worst-affected areas.
- Additional reporting James Ihaka, Agencies
NZ man missing
Concerns for the safety of a New Zealand volunteer are mounting after yesterday's tsunami.
The man, a marine scientist, was last seen on Friday when he went on a survey.
Volunteer Service Abroad chief executive Debbie Snelson would not name the man or his partner, a New Zealand woman, who she said was safe.
Seven other VSA workers in the islands were also fine.
Ms Snelson said the couple had been living on an island just off Gizo for two years working on village-based enterprise projects.
- James Ihaka / additional reporting REUTERS
