UNITED NATIONS - UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Monday he was concerned about the effects of a tsunami which hit the Solomon Islands, adding a UN team was ready to travel to the stricken South Pacific state.
"The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the potential consequences of the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea," spokeswoman Michele Montas said.
"The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has a team ready to deploy to the Solomon Islands and has offered assistance to the government."
A powerful undersea earthquake unleashed a tsunami that pounded the Solomon Islands on Monday, destroying entire villages and killing at least 15 people, with the toll expected to rise, officials in Honiara said.
The wall of water triggered by the 8.0-magnitude quake -- which witnesses said was up to five meters (16.5 feet) high -- swamped towns, flattened homes, and sparked panic among residents of the impoverished country.
The Solomon Islands, 2,575 kilometres (1,600 miles) east of Australia, has a little over half a million people living on dozens of islands, although hundreds more are uninhabited.
An earthquake off Indonesia's island of Sumatra in December 2004 spawned a tsunami that spread across the Indian Ocean, killing 220,000 people. The United Nations launched an emergency appeal at the time for some 1.6 billion dollars.
04/02/2007 20:00 GMT