Countries in the South Pacific are bracing themselves for what could be tail-whips of an underwater earthquake and tsunami that happened a few hours ago killing at least 13 people.

The earthquake hit magnitude 8 on the Richter scale and the epicenter was detected 220 miles off the coast of the Solomons. The death toll registered has not included those missing as the 30-foot wave battered villages along the beach.

Even in the deluge, authorities said that it was fortunate that everything happened in the morning, prompting people to take notice and allowing civil defense measures to be conducted.

Australia is now on full alert and has closed beaches and stopped harbor activities in Sydney. Similar precautionary alerts have also been raised in Hawaii and Japan to safeguard live sand avoid incidents that happened in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Tsunamis are often triggered by offshore earthquakes. The movement in the ocean floor causes water to be drawn back farther than it usually is along the coast. That creates the artificial and extreme "low tide." The educated know it's time to run when they see a phenomenon like that.