HONIARA, Solomon Islands — A powerful undersea earthquake today in the South Pacific sent a 10-foot-high tsunami crashing into the Solomon Islands, wiping out at least one village and killing at least 13 people.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no destructive tsunami threat to Hawai'i from the quake, which occurred at 10:39 a.m. yesterday, Hawai'i time (7:39 a.m. Monday, local time). The center canceled the regional warning and watch it had issued for much of the Pacific except for areas nearest the tsunami source.

The large waves struck the western town of Gizo, inundating buildings and causing widespread destruction within five minutes of the earthquake.

"There wasn't any warning — the warning was the earth tremors," Alex Lokopio, the premier of the Solomon's Western Province, told New Zealand's National Radio. "It shook us very, very strongly and we were frightened, and all of a sudden the sea was rising up."

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.

Reports remained sketchy because communications were reduced in many cases to scratchy two-way radio lines. Emergency officials have yet to be able to reach the area hit by the tsunami and communications with the area is limited.

Alfred Maesulia, the information director in Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare's office, said late today that 13 people had been killed and an unknown number were still missing.

Gizo resident Judith Kennedy said water "right up to your head" swept through the town.

"All the houses near the sea were flattened," she told The Associated Press by telephone. "The downtown area is a very big mess from the tsunami and the earthquake. A lot of houses have collapsed. The whole town is still shaking" from aftershocks.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude-8.0 and struck about 6 miles beneath the sea floor, 217 miles northwest of the capital, Honiara.

The Pacific region from Australia to Hawai'i went on alert for several hours after the quake struck between the islands of Bougainville and New Georgia, though officials canceled a regionwide tsunami warning after the danger period passed.

Gizo, a regional center, is about 25 miles from the earthquake's epicenter.

Another witness in the town, dive shop owner Danny Kennedy, estimated the height of the wave at 10 feet.

"I'm driving down the street — there are boats in the middle of the road, buildings have completely collapsed and fallen down," he said in a telephone interview.

"We're just trying to mobilize water and food, and shelter for people at the moment because ... in the town alone there's going to be between 2,000 (and) 3,000 homeless. It's not a very good scene at the moment."

Harry Wickham, who owns a waterfront hotel in Gizo, said the damage was widespread.

"The waves came up probably about 10 feet and swept through town," he told Australia's Nine Network television. "There's a lot of water damage and a lot of debris floating around."

"Ten feet of water washing through town — you can imagine what damage it has done here."

The Hawai'i-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported the quake at magnitude 8.1 and said a temblor of that strength could cause a destructive tsunami. The center issued a warning bulletin for the Solomon Islands and neighboring Papua New Guinea.

It ordered a lower-level "tsunami watch" for other places, including most South Pacific countries, but later canceled the alert. The center said a 6-inch wave had been reported in Honiara.

Police Sgt. Godfrey Abiah said in Honiara that police in Gizo had received warning about a possible tsunami and were helping people leave the town for higher ground when the wave hit. "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.