New Zealand Tsunamis crisis

A tsunami ripped across islands of the South Pacific, wiping out several villages and killing at least 34 people in Samoa and American Samoa, with the number of dead expected to escalate as more bodies are found.The giant waves in the South Pacific followed a massive earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, that struck about 120 miles off the Samoan coast at 6:48 a.m. local time Tuesday. Large swells began rolling into populated areas soon afterward, sweeping some people and cars out to sea, demolishing buildings and covering roads in debris, mud and large fish. Earlier, the New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS Science) recorded waves of up to one meter at Raoul Island, about 1,000 km north of the North Island and waves of about 50 centimeters at East Cape. Residents in low-lying coastal areas of the Coromandel Peninsula and Northland in the upper North Island were told to move to higher ground. The Port of Napier sent its boats out to sea in preparation for the expected tsunami. The tsunami warning was downgraded to a threat advisory just after 11:00 a.m. New Zealand time. Meteorological officials declared tsunami warnings for a number of South Pacific islands, including Fiji and Tonga, as well as New Zealand, but the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later canceled the tsunami warnings after the waves had passed.