Tsunami death toll rises to 28

HONIARA – Survivors scavenged for food and drinking water in towns hammered by a tsunami on the Solomon Islands’ west coast, while officials said the death toll was 28 and would rise as they struggled to reach remote communities.

The first television footage of the devastated region taken by helicopter after Monday’s double-hit disaster – a huge undersea earthquake followed minutes later by a surging wall of water – showed building after tin-and-thatched-roof building collapsed along a muddy foreshore. Men, some shirtless and wearing shorts, picked through the debris.Some buildings leaned awkwardly on broken stilts.Arnold Moveni, chairman of the disaster committee in the Solomons’ hardest-hit Western Province, said 28 people were confirmed dead, and the toll was expected to keep rising.Most bodies were found by residents as they searched through rubble for missing relatives, he said.Five unconfirmed deaths were reported in neighbouring Papua New Guinea.The government lifted a tsunami warning imposed since Monday’s disaster, despite powerful aftershocks that continued to rattle nerves, and was encouraging people to return to their homes.National Disaster Management Office spokesman Julian Makaa told Australian Broadcasting Corporation an initial damage assessment was ‘916 houses, and a very rough estimate of the people affected is around 5 000 people’.The Red Cross said about 2 000 of those were homeless in Gizo, the main population centre of some 7 000 in the zone, and that outlying villages still to be reached may have fared much worse.Many of the homeless spent Monday night sleeping under tarpaulins or the stars on a hill behind Gizo after the magnitude 8,1 quake hit Monday morning under the sea about 40 kilometres off Gizo.Walls of water up to five metres high plowed into the coast five minutes later.Among the dead were a bishop and three worshippers killed when a wave hit a church during an ordination ceremony on the island of Simbo, the United Church said.Nampa-APMen, some shirtless and wearing shorts, picked through the debris.Some buildings leaned awkwardly on broken stilts.Arnold Moveni, chairman of the disaster committee in the Solomons’ hardest-hit Western Province, said 28 people were confirmed dead, and the toll was expected to keep rising.Most bodies were found by residents as they searched through rubble for missing relatives, he said.Five unconfirmed deaths were reported in neighbouring Papua New Guinea.The government lifted a tsunami warning imposed since Monday’s disaster, despite powerful aftershocks that continued to rattle nerves, and was encouraging people to return to their homes.National Disaster Management Office spokesman Julian Makaa told Australian Broadcasting Corporation an initial damage assessment was ‘916 houses, and a very rough estimate of the people affected is around 5 000 people’. The Red Cross said about 2 000 of those were homeless in Gizo, the main population centre of some 7 000 in the zone, and that outlying villages still to be reached may have fared much worse.Many of the homeless spent Monday night sleeping under tarpaulins or the stars on a hill behind Gizo after the magnitude 8,1 quake hit Monday morning under the sea about 40 kilometres off Gizo.Walls of water up to five metres high plowed into the coast five minutes later.Among the dead were a bishop and three worshippers killed when a wave hit a church during an ordination ceremony on the island of Simbo, the United Church said.Nampa-AP