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Update-2: Quakes, tsunami kills at least 21 on Solomon Islands

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At least 21 people are dead in the aftermath of two earthquakes and a tsunami in the Solomon Islands, in the South Pacific, regional mass media agencies said Monday.
JAKARTA, April 2 (RIA Novosti) - At least 21 people are dead in the aftermath of two earthquakes and a tsunami in the Solomon Islands, in the South Pacific, regional mass media agencies said Monday.

Two earthquakes measuring, according to estimates, between 7.6 and 9 on the Richter scale generated a tsunami that completely flooded the towns of Gizo and Noro.

Earlier Aleks Lokopio, the prime minister of the government's West province, said at least 15 people died in the town of Gizo and surrounding areas. Alfred Maesulia, a spokesman for the government of the island chain nation, said the tsunami waves were up to 10 meters (30 feet) high and many villagers were reported missing.

"In some coastal regions [of the Solomon Islands] waves of up to 10 meters [30 feet] high have washed away villages and destroyed homes," Maesulia said.

PFnet, a local information news wire, also reported earlier that the waves, which reached some 200 meters (600 feet) inland, were the highest ever to hit the Solomon Islands and at least six people had died on the Simbo Island.

The islands are a popular venue among international tourists, and local resident rely mainly on fishing and tourism.

The most powerful and disastrous natural calamity involving a tsunami over the last 40 years occurred in December, 2004, when an earthquake measuring nine on the Richter scale in the Indian Ocean generated a tsunami that hit South Asian countries, particularly Indonesia, killing more than 280,000 people. Tens of thousands of people were reported missing.

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