America's North Shore Journal

CIA map of American Samoa

Peace Corps worker blogging from Samoa

Disaster photos courtesy of @ardieroque, via Twitter and TwitPic. Click on image to enlarge.

BBC with video at this link

My colleague John Raynar called in sick this morning, and I’m so glad he did because otherwise I would have been on the road to work when it hit.

I was sitting in for him on the morning radio show on 93KHJ when the earthquake hit, at about 7:50am. It lasted several minutes.

We immediately sent out an earthquake warning on air, to tell everyone to stay away from possible landslide areas. We also asked schools to initiate their tsunami plans to get kids up the mountains.

We sent a tsunami warning 10 minutes later as we saw the first rising water.

Our building, Pago Plaza, is located in the middle of the harbour, practically at sea level.

We stayed on the air as the water reached three or four feet in the parking lot.

The water stayed at that level for a few minutes, but then it surged to around 15 feet.

Associated Press

The Samoan capital, Apia, was virtually deserted by afternoon, with schools and businesses closed. Hours after the waves struck, fresh sirens rang out with another tsunami alert and panicked residents headed for higher ground again, although there was no indication of a new quake.

In American Samoa’s capital of Pago Pago, the streets and fields were filled with ocean debris, mud, overturned cars and several boats as a massive cleanup effort continued into the night. Several buildings in the city — just a few feet above sea level — were flattened. Several areas were expected to be without electricity for up to a month.

ReliefWeb tracks the disaster and aid assistance.