Dozens Dead After Tsunami Near Samoa

An earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed several dozen people in the Samoan islands in the Pacific Tuesday, but fears of surges in other parts of the region began to subside in the hours after the quake.

A National Weather Service official told The Associated Press that at least 14 people were dead in American Samoa, a United States territory that falls about halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, and officials in the island nation of Samoa told Reuters that as many as 100 people died there, with 20 confirmed dead.

The waves were caused by an 8.0-magnitude underwater earthquake that struck 125 miles south of Apia, Samoa, according to the United States Geologic Survey.

Waves in American Samoa’s capital, Pago Pago, rose 5.1 feet above normal sea level, according to the National Weather Services’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Mr. Fryer said that although the center issued tsunami warnings within 10 minutes of the quake, residents of the nearby islands probably had little notice of the impending surges.

Other islands in Pacific were also thought to be at risk of a tsunami, but the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center canceled the warnings early Tuesday evening. Nonetheless, the government of Japan issued a tsunami warning for its eastern coastline.

Phone lines to the remote islands were jammed, leaving American government officials struggling to assess the damage. American Samoa’s capital, Pago Pago, was reportedly deserted after residents fled, while villages were flattened by the waves, and later by landslides.

High waves were observed as far away as Hawaii.

Governments in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand pledged to send aid beginning on Wednesday, while workers rushed to clear enough debris from Pago Pago’s airport for emergency planes to land.