Tsunami waves smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa on Sept. 29, killing possibly more than 100 people, some washed out to sea, destroying villages and injuring hundreds.
U.S. President Barack Obama declared a major disaster in American Samoa, a U.S. territory, and ordered federal aid to help recovery efforts.
Television images showed homes ripped apart, cars submerged in the sea or lodged in trees and large fishing boats hurled ashore by the waves generated by a 8.0 magnitude quake southwest of American Samoa.
On Sept. 30, Western Samoa disaster officials said at least 47 people were killed, but the toll may reach 100 as rescuers search for bodies buried under sand in flattened villages along the southern shore of the island of Upolu.
REFILE - CORRECTING DATE American Samoa Governor Togiola Tulafono (L) and two government officials sit in a plane at the U.S. coast guard air station, as it waits to take off from Honolulu on its way to American Samoa September 29, 2009. A series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa killing possibly more than 100 people, some washed out to sea, destroying villages and injuring hundreds, officials said on Wednesday. A Pacific-wide tsunami warning was issued after an 8.0 magnitude undersea quake off American Samoa, with small tsunamis reaching New Zealand, Hawaii and Japan. At least 24 people were killed in American Samoa, and 50 injured, Tulafono said from Hawaii, with the southern portion of the main Tutuila island "devastated". REUTERS/Hugh Gentry (UNITED STATES DISASTER POLITICS TRANSPORT)
REFILE - CORRECTING DATE A man looks at wreckage, and damage caused to buildings near a church after a tsunami hit the village of Leone, American Samoa September 29, 2009. A series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa killing possibly more than 100 people, some washed out to sea, destroying villages and injuring hundreds, officials said on Wednesday. A Pacific-wide tsunami warning was issued after an 8.0 magnitude undersea quake off American Samoa, with small tsunamis reaching New Zealand, Hawaii and Japan. REUTERS/Ardie Roque (AMERICAN SAMOA DISASTER ENVIRONMENT)
German seismologist Winfried Hanka shows a graph registered during the earthquake in the Pacific off the Samoa islands region that caused a tsunami, as he poses for the media at Germany's Geoscientific Research Institute GFZ based in Potsdam, south of Berlin, September 30, 2009. A series of tsunamis smashed into the Pacific island nations of American and Western Samoa killing possibly more than 100 people, some washed out to sea, destroying villages and injuring hundreds, officials said on Wednesday. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch (GERMANY ENVIRONMENT SCI TECH DISASTER)
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