Samoa like a war zone, resort manager says

SYDNEY - The manager of a Samoan resort, who was lucky to survive the tsunami that pushed waves up beaches in the South Pacific island state, said Wednesday that it could be days before all visitors were accounted for.

Australian Paul Robertson, for the past 10 years the general manager of the Samoana Resort on the south coast of the main island of Upolu, said he witnessed the coral reef in the lagoon exposed before the water rushed back and came up the beach.

“We could see the water draining out of the lagoon and then hardly believing my eyes, and it’s draining backwards out of the reef,” he told Australia’s ABC Radio in a telephone interview. “I’m looking at it thinking ‘I’m not seeing this, I’m not seeing this’ because obviously I know what it means.”

Roberston, who managed to save himself, his staff and his guests, said one visitor was a doctor and volunteered to go into the general hospital in town to help out.

“He rang back to inform his wife that he was alright,” Robertson said. “He said in there it looked like a war zone with casualties just coming in one after another. Heaven knows what the actual count of casualties and loss of life will be in the end.”