New Zealand tourists have told of their terror when the tsunami smashed through their Samoan beach resort.
The Virgin Cove Resort, a collection of traditional Samoan-style huts on a secluded beach on Upolu island, was hit by the first wave of the tsunami passing over a coral reef 1km from shore.
The wave was about head height when it reached the beach near the village of Sa'anapu.
All of Virgin Cove Resort's guests, 22 New Zealanders, a Briton, two Australians, and two Japanese - survived unharmed and sought shelter at a local primary school.
Christchurch artist Melissa Sharplin, and two other New Zealanders, Kimberly Brown and Preston McNeil fled to their rental van.
"This huge wave was heading straight towards us," Ms Sharplin told the The Age newspaper in Melbourne.
"We jumped in the van, just closed the door and then the wave just crashed into the car...and swept us down into the mangroves and into trees and the windows smashed."
Ms Brown, who planned to marry Mr McNeil at the resort this weekend, said the tsunami was like a "wall of terror".
"It was just this massive, rumbling noise that sounded sort of like the way a pack of helicopters would in the distance, with that really deep rumbling," she said.
"It was a wall but it had...a foaming head and another wave came on top of it...and it kept building up...and then all of sudden you realised there was just absolutely nothing you could do and we just ran screaming to the van.
"It was like...a really bad cheesy Hollywood disaster movie but it was actually happening."
As the van filled with water and glass smashed over them, the trio feared they would be killed.
"The feeling of being swept by such a velocity of water was absolutely terrifying," Ms Sharplin said.
"We were all just looking at each other like 'this is just it' and I was just thinking about all my family and my life was just flashing before my eyes...'I'm not supposed to die,' that's all I was thinking.
"It was just the most horrible, horrible feeling."
The New Zealanders returned to their beach bungalow between waves to try to salvage their possessions, but then had to run for their lives into the forest.
Ms Brown said her mother and other wedding guests had cancelled their flights to the island and the couple now plan to marry in Wellington on the weekend.
Wellington woman Juli Clausen has felt plenty of earthquakes but nothing could have prepared her for the force of the tremblor which preceded yesterday's Samoan tsunami.
"It was like a giant had picked up the house and was shaking it," she said.
She and husband Marc's relatives holidaying on the other side of the island felt the earthquake as just a gentle rocking - but their horror was yet to come.
While the Clausens escaped the tsunami waves, their cousins had to run for their lives - with one being sucked into the surging sea.
Mrs Clausen, a New Zealand-born Samoan, told NZPA tonight she and Marc were in Samoa with daughters Aliana, six, Niva, five and Penina, three, for a family function.
The Clausens were on the opposite side of the island to where the tsunami struck, but headed for higher ground as soon as the quake stopped.
They were unscathed and arrived home today, stunned but thankful.
Cousins of Mr Clausen holidaying on the other side were not so lucky - they had to fight for their lives, frantically climbing a hill as the waves roared up the beach.
"As soon as they saw the sea pulling back they went running for it and clambered up a bank," Mrs Clausen said.
"They were grabbing roots and climbing, and they could hear the water behind them.
"The husband, he had got on to the bank but the waves came up and actually grabbed him and pulled him out."
As an experienced diver, he knew his best chance of survival was to go with flow of the water, she said.
"He knew that rather than to try and swim against the pull of the waves, just to relax and allow himself to be pulled out and with the next wave be drawn back in."
He was pulled out to sea three times but eventually made it back to the beach and was reunited with his family.
They had nothing but the clothes on their backs but were incredibly grateful to all be alive, Mrs Clausen said.
They feared the death toll - currently 148 - would climb much higher.
"They (the cousins) saw mums running around with dead babies in their arms and kids walking around on their own."
