The memories of the nightmarish massive 2004 tsunami have once again tickled the unattained injuries of the minds of thousands of victims. It was when a magnitude 9 quake sent massive waves to slam into a dozen countries’ coastlines around the Indian Ocean’s rim. It killed or left about 230,000 people missing.
Call it a history or not, it did repeat itself with another such bone-rattling fury of the nature – the tsunami — crashing into parts of the Solomon Islands on Monday. Along, with it, the 10-foot-high waves wiped out one village and killed at least 13 people, with the death toll expected to rise.
It just took five minutes, for the tsunami-sparking undersea earthquake to raise large waves to inundated buildings and cause widespread destruction. The western town of Gizo received the maximum burn of the waves’ fury.
As told to New Zealand’s National Radio, Alex Lokopio, the premier of the Solomon’s Western Province said,
There wasn’t any warning – the warning was the earth tremors. It shook us very, very strongly and we were frightened, and all of a sudden the sea was rising up.
Alfred Maesulia, the information director in Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s office told The Associated Press,
Some people were seen floating on the sea during the big waves but it was very difficult to go near them. The number at the moment is 13. It’s possible that number will increase, maybe double up or even more.