* Tsunami devastates western Solomons *

[sinemm]

Tsunami waves churned by an undersea earthquake crashed ashore in the Solomon Islands on Monday, wiping away entire villages and triggering alerts from Australia to Hawaii, officials said. At least 13 people were killed, and the prime minister warned that the toll would likely grow.


In the South Pacific nation's west, where the devastation appeared centered, there were reports of people being swept away as waves plowed up to a half-mile inland. The magnitude-8 quake that created the tsunami was followed by more than two dozen aftershocks, including at least four of magnitude-6 or stronger.

"It was just a noise like an underground explosion," said Dorothy Parkinson, a resident of Gizo, where a wall of water swept through the streets. "The wave came almost instantaneously. Everything that was standing is flattened."

Some residents described a wave up to 16 feet tall.

"We ran for our lives, away from the waves," Arnold Pidakere, a schoolteacher in Gizo, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "When we looked back, we saw our house being destroyed."

Pidakere was among thousands of residents of the town of 7,000 who fled to a nearby hill.

"There wasn't any warning