"We are trying to get those people staying closer to the coast to move inland," said Tuvalu's acting police commissioner Titelu Kauani. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for some 25 regional nations and territories including as far afield as Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, before cancelling it about two and a half hours later. But the warning centre cautioned that the tsunami may have wrought damage close to the quake zone and that it was up to local authorities in each country to give the all-clear to residents. "Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated," the centre said, without giving any indication of the size of the wave or whether it was capable of causing damage. "It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicentre," it said. "Danger to boats and coastal structures can continue for several hours due to rapid currents."

The alert came just eight days after an 8.0 earthquake hurled giant waves at Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, obliterating entire villages and killing 177 residents and foreign tourists. No reports of Australian injuries There is hysteria, with people saying they have seen big waves coming Parliamentary secretary for international development Bob McMullan said authorities were continuing to monitor the situation. "At this stage there’s no reports of any problems for any Australians or any damage," he told Sky News.

"These are significant earthquakes affecting potentially both the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu immediately, and then you have the tsunami consequence. "So, we’ll have to do a lot of monitoring to be sure what’s happened on the smaller and the outlying islands." Staff from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) were trying to contact Australians in the affected areas, Mr McMullan said. "We need to be very careful to gather all the information but we’re contacting all the Australians. "Our consular contingency plans are swinging into effect again and as far as we can tell so far there’s no serious damage and there’s no impact on Australians to date."

A DFAT spokesperson said Australian diplomatic missions in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Kiribati had been alerted. "Our missions are contacting registered Australians in the area to determine if any Australians have been affected,’’ the spokesperson said. "So far, there have been no reports of any Australians requiring consular assistance." "So far, there have been no reports of any Australians requiring consular assistance." The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had earlier issued a tsunami warning for 11 nations, including Papua New Guinea, an oil and gas supplier, and the popular resort islands of Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. The two huge subsea quakes struck between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, one measuring 7.8 magnitude and the other 7.1.

The first 7.8 quake struck 294 kilometres from Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island at a shallow depth of 35 kilometres, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The second earthquake struck 330km from Luganville on Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island at 9.18am, just 15 minutes after the earlier tremor. New Zealand Civil Defence urged all people to clear beaches in Northland and East Cape and if in boats, to get off the water, and has advised all fire, police and local councils to be on standby. Residents of the Vanuatu capital Port Vila fled coastal areas to higher ground, locals told AFP. A groups of Sydney high school students were in Vanuatu running lessons for locals when the tsunami warning hit.

The group of 33 girls from Wenona girls school - in North Sydney - had to move to higher ground this morning as soon as the tsunami warning was issued, school spokesman Mark Staker said. Principal Kerrie Wilde, in Sydney, had since been in contact with teachers travelling with the students and been told they were safe and well. The girls, in grades nine through to 11, had been in Vanuatu on a "service learning tour" since Saturday. "They work with local schools, the kids conduct lessons and run sports carnivals," Mr Staker said. Seventeen of the girls had been at Erakor, near Port Vila, and the other 16 were at Manua when the tsunami warning was issued.

There were six teachers with the students. The group are expected back on Saturday. An Australian tourist on her honeymoon in Vanuatu said locals were completely unaware of a tsunami alert. Leia from Bendigo in central Victoria, told ABC Radio that she only found out about warning after her brother in Australia called her. "The tour guide looked at me very strangely and with broken English was like: 'What do you mean?' "And I said: 'Don't you have tsunami warnings?' and he said 'No. We’ve never had to do this before'."

The Vanuatu tour guide then called the local weather station and Leia spoke with the centre and discovered they also had "no idea" about any tsunami threat. "It was very frightening to have the locals not aware of what was going on," she said. She said only those who had a radio with them would have known about the warning. It feels like the "calm before the storm", she said. Authorities in New Caledonia, a French territory, were evacuating people from the island's eastern shore and from the nearby Loyalty Islands to higher ground, local police said.

A resident of Luganville on the southern coast of Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island said the quake had shaken the town, but there were no reports of damage or change in sea level. Loading "People were frightened and some ran out of the building onto the street because it was so strong," a Florence Cari, receptionist at the Hotel Santo told Reuters by telephone. "The sea has not changed but we don't know if something will happen." A reporter at the newspaper in Port Vila said people on Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island were running for higher ground. "We have had reports that the kids are running into the hills," she said.