Dazed relatives picked through the rubble of Samoan villages and resorts as rescue teams arrived to hunt survivors of a tsunami that killed at least 118 and left many more missing.

An Australian plane carrying search-and-rescue and medical experts flew into the capital, Apia, to join the search for residents and tourists and help treat the waves of injured.

The death toll is expected to rise dramatically after an 8.0 magnitude earthquake — the Samoan islands' worst since in nearly a century — unleashed a wall of water which smashed the coast, echoing Asia's catastrophic 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

Truckloads of bodies

Survivors described seeing truckloads of bodies in Samoa, an idyllic Pacific holiday destination which counted 84 dead, while neighbouring American Samoa reported 27 and Tonga said seven people had been killed.

"It's not paradise any more — it's hell on earth," one survivor told Sky News.

Aid workers expect a jump in the numbers as they reach shattered villages and as the bodies of people swept out to sea rise to the surface.

"We've seen pick-up trucks carrying the dead... back to town," tourist Fotu Becerra told local radio on her return to New Zealand.

"We were shocked when we saw the first one but after three hours, it seemed normal."

New Zealand and the United States have also pledged help, and aid workers have already reached the hard-hit southern village of Poutasi with clean water, food and clothes for survivors.

As emergency supplies arrived, villagers chanced across the body of a missing woman and her baby granddaughter dumped in a bush by the water's terrifying force.

'No, no, no time. No bells, no siren.'

One resident told how her aunt was swept against a beached fishing trawler, fracturing her skull, as she tried to outrun the sudden five-foot wave.

"No, no, no time. No bells, no siren. In one minute, right when they saw the wave, it was here," resident Lonnie Mai told AFP.

Three Australians, two Koreans, one New Zealander and a British toddler were among the dead in the disaster, which "devastated" Samoa's tourist hotspot, according to the deputy prime minister.

Up to 70 villages stood in the way of the waves in the worst-hit area and each housed from 300-800 people, a local journalist told AFP.

Amateur video footage showed villages that had been completely obliterated, homes reduced to shards of metal and wood, while cars were stuck in treetops where they had been hurled by the tsunami's force.

Waves around 25 feet (7.5-metres) high did most of the damage as they swept ashore about 20 minutes after the earthquake, demolishing buildings in coastal areas.

Witnesses in American Samoa said cars were swept out to sea and buildings were destroyed in what the US territory's Congress delegate said was a scene of "devastation".

Looters roamed the US territory almost unimpeded, pillaging battered shops, as police were kept occupied searching for bodies, officials said.

Tonga reported significant damage on the small island of Niuatoputapu with at least seven dead and three missing. However, other countries saw only large waves at worst despite a brief, Pacific-wide tsunami warning.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) continued to report dozens of moderate aftershocks in the vicinity of the major quake, including a 5.2-magnitude quake that struck almost exactly 24 hours after the first.

AFP

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