Samoa Earthquake Triggers Tsunami, Kills Up To 20PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — A powerful Pacific Ocean earthquake spawned towering tsunami waves that swept ashore on Samoa and American Samoa, flooding and 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 higher ground, where they remained huddled hours after the quake struck early Tuesday. Signs of immense 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 20 miles below the ocean floor, 120 miles from American Samoa, a U.S. territory that is home to 65,000 people.
Hampered by power and communications outages, officials hours later struggled to get a handle on the damage and casualties. At least 39 people were killed — 20 on Samoa and 19 on American Samoa — but officials acknowledged the death toll seemed sure to rise.
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