http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/29/samoa.earthquake/ (CNN) -- A tsunami warning for the South Pacific was called off hours after a magnitude
8.0 earthquake was recorded near American Samoa, but the extent of the damage of earlier tsunami waves was still unfolding.
Residents move to higher ground in American Samoa after Tuesday's earthquake.
At least 17 deaths were confirmed, said Dr. Salamo Laumoli, director of health services of American Samoa.
"Two or three villages have been badly damaged," he told CNN International.
An American Samoa homeland security official working at the island's emergency operations center told CNN that the death toll is expected to rise to at least 20.
The tsunami wave hit right in the middle of the harbor of Pogo Pogo, the capital, Cinta Brown said.
Water damage and infrastructure damage was reported throughout the island, she said.
The village of Leone was "sadly devastated," Brown said. "The wave came onshore and washed out people's homes."
The same happened on the hard-hit east and west sides of American Samoa, she said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, canceled tsunami watches and warnings about four hours after the earthquake hit.
Officials in American Samoa issued a clear call and were focusing on assessing the damage, Brown said.
The temblor, with a magnitude of 8.0, generated three separate tsunami waves, the largest of which measured 5.1 feet from sea level height, Vindell Hsu, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center told CNN. Preliminary data originally reported a larger tsunami. Video Watch a resident talk about what happened »
The quake is not expected to generate a tsunami along the West Coast of the United States or Canada, according to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, though a tsunami advisory was put in place.
