APIA, Samoa - A powerful earthquake in the South Pacific hurled a massive tsunami at the shores of Samoa and American Samoa, flattening villages and sweeping cars and people out to sea, leaving at least 99 dead and dozens missing.

Survivors fled the fast-churning water for higher ground and remained huddled there hours after the quake struck early Tuesday. Signs of devastation were everywhere, with a giant boat washed ashore lying on the edge of a highway and floodwaters swallowing up cars and homes.



The quake, with a magnitude between 8.0 and 8.3, struck around dawn about 125 miles from Samoa, an island nation of 180,000 people located about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii. It struck about 120 miles from neighboring American Samoa, a U.S. territory that is home to 65,000 people.


Pacific tsunami toll rises, villages ?wiped out? - Asia-Pacific - msnbc.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33075304/ns/world_news-asiapacific/)

I went to high school with a couple Samoans - good people, real good people.