chipshot said:
Tsunami warning lifted after 7.8 quake
(Nuku' Alofa, Tonga-AP) May 3, 2006 - A tsunami warning has been lifted for the South Pacific.
The warning was issued after a magnitude-7.8 quake rocked the ocean bed 95 miles south of the island nation of Tonga.
A tsunami warning was issued for New Zealand, some 1,300 miles away.
The warning was lifted after a tsunami of less than two feet was recorded.
A police officer about 95 miles to the north of the epicenter called the quake "strong but not long" and he said his department hadn't heard about a tsunami warning.
An American visiting Tonga told CNN that some stuff had fallen out of shelves and had broken in her hotel kitchen but everything seemed pretty much intact.
A reporter who drove through the city saw no damage to buildings, but inside buildings he could see bookshelves that toppled over. Power in the city was out for about two hours after the quake.
Scientists say the earthquake was centered 95 miles south of Tonga, and about 1,300 miles north-northeast of Auckland, New Zealand.
Tonga is a 170-island archipelago about halfway between Australia and Tahiti. It has a population of about 108,000 people.
In December, 2004, the most powerful earthquake in four decades ripped apart the Indian Ocean floor off Indonesia's Sumatra island, displacing millions of tons of water and spawning giant waves that sped off in all directions. The tsunami left at least 216,000 people dead or missing in a dozen nations.
Updated 2:49pm by Bryce Mursch