An aid sit­u­a­tion is devel­op­ing in the islands of Samoa, where a tsunami hit the islands ear­lier today. 99 peo­ple are dead and hun­dreds are miss­ing, feared swept out to sea, from the earth­quake trig­gered tsunami.

From this Asso­ci­ated Press story that we found at the Star Press online, reporters Keni Lesa And Fili Sagapo­lutele tell us what happened.

Sur­vivors fled the waves of water for higher ground on the South Pacific islands after the mag­ni­tude 8.0 quake struck at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 1748 GMT) Tues­day. The quake was cen­tered about 120 miles south of the islands of Samoa, which has about 180,000 peo­ple, and Amer­i­can Samoa, a U.S. ter­ri­tory of 65,000.

Four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high roared ashore on Amer­i­can Samoa about 15 min­utes after the quake, reach­ing up to a mile (1.5 kilo­me­ters) inland, Mike Reynolds, super­in­ten­dent of the National Park of Amer­i­can Samoa, was quoted as say­ing by a parks ser­vice spokeswoman.

Less than 24 hours later, another strong under­wa­ter earth­quake rocked west­ern Indone­sia on Wednes­day, briefly trig­ger­ing a tsunami alert for coun­tries along the Indian Ocean. The 7.6-magnitude quake top­pled build­ings, cut power and trig­gered a land­slide on Suma­tra island, and at least 75 peo­ple were reported killed. Experts said the seis­mic events were not related.

The Samoan cap­i­tal, Apia, was vir­tu­ally deserted by after­noon, with schools and busi­nesses closed. Hours after the waves struck, sirens rang out with another tsunami alert and pan­icked res­i­dents headed for higher ground again, although there was no indi­ca­tion of a new quake.

In Amer­i­can Samoa’s cap­i­tal of Pago Pago, the streets and fields were filled with ocean debris, mud, over­turned cars and sev­eral boats as a mas­sive cleanup effort stretched into the night. Sev­eral build­ings in the city – just a few feet above sea level – were flat­tened. Power was expected to be out in some areas for up to a month.

In Wash­ing­ton, Pres­i­dent Obama has declared a major dis­as­ter for Amer­i­can Samoa. Obama said in a state­ment early Wednes­day that he and his wife, Michelle, “will keep those who have lost so much in our thoughts and prayers.”

Ham­pered by power and com­mu­ni­ca­tions out­ages, offi­cials in the South Pacific islands strug­gled to deter­mine dam­age and casualties.

Samoan police com­mis­sioner Lilo Maiava told The Asso­ci­ated Press that police had con­firmed 63 deaths but dev­as­tated areas were still being searched.

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