Deadly tsunami injures at least one German tourist

According to Schreiber, a German couple was carried away by the wave on Tuesday evening that swept through a resort where they were staying. The man suffered a head wound and was in treatment at a hospital, he said, adding that the tsunami had been “devastating.”

Residents on the Samoan Islands were warned of the tsunami via text message and not sirens, Schreiber said. But because the earthquake, estimated at 8.0 on the Richter scale and just 100 miles away, residents had just 15 minutes to reach high ground.

“The warning came too late,” Schneider said.

Currently island schools are closed he said.

“Pretty much no one is going out,” he said.

Authorities in the former Germany colony of West Samoa have estimated that at least 100 people were killed in the tsunami, many of them tourists from New Zealand and Australia. Meanwhile other islands in the archipelago are also reporting deaths – American Samoa has reported 19, and Tonga 10.