HONIARA, Solomon Islands - A powerful magnitude-7.6 earthquake struck off the Solomon Islands on Monday, sending a tsunami wave crashing into the country's west coast and prompting region-wide disaster warnings, officials said.

A powerful magnitude-7.6 earthquake struck off the Solomon Islands, sending a tsunami wave crashing into the country's west coast and prompting region-wide disaster warnings, officials said Monday, April 2, 2007. [AP]

Sgt. Godfrey Abiah said police in the capital, Honiara, reported a wave several yards high had crashed ashore in the western town of Gizo shortly before communication lines with the region were cut.

Julian McLeod of the Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office said there were unconfirmed reports that two villages in the country's far west were flooded.

"Two villages were reported to have been completely inundated," McLeod told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "We have received reports of four people missing."

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck at 7:39 a.m. about 6 miles beneath the sea floor, 217 miles northwest of Honiara.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for the Solomon Islands and neighboring Papua New Guinea. It ordered a lower-level "tsunami watch" for other places, including most South Pacific countries. The center said Hawaii's status could be elevated to warning or watch.

A tsunami was also possible at Willis Island and Cooktown in far northeastern Australia, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's National Meteorological and Oceanographic Centre said.

Abiah said police in Gizo had been warning residents to move to higher ground away from the coast when the tsunami hit. Communications were lost soon afterward.

"We have lost radio contact with the two police stations down there and we're not getting any clear picture from down there," he told The Associated Press by telephone.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Deli Oso, said the quake was felt in Honiara but there were no reports of any damage.