The depth was recorded at 58kms below sea level.

Papua New Guinea emergency authorities said they were still checking with villages along the coast, but there were no immediate reports of a tsunami or quake damage.

In July 1998, two undersea quakes measuring 7.0 created three tsunamis that killed at least 2,100 people near the town of Aitape on Papua New Guinea's north coast.

"We haven't had any information that any tsunami was generated," seismologist Chris McKee from Port Moresby's Geophysical Observatory told Reuters via telephone from the capital.

"We're still trying to get any information about possible damage. We haven't had any yet."

The USGS described the quake as "strong" on its website.

"No destructive Pacific-wide tsunami threat exists based on historical earthquake and tsunami data," it said.

"However, earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunami that can be destructive along coasts located within a hundred kilometres of the earthquake epicentre."

Papua New Guinea lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismically active area with frequent earthquakes and volcanoes.

on Ancken said he was on a beach during a visit to the islands over the weekend when he noticed the fish.

"The fish started to jump out of the water in a lagoon, like jump out of the water like a jolt," Local 6's Erik von Ancken said. "Obviously, they sensed it before we did and then everything started shaking."

The quake hit at 7:07 a.m. local time Sunday, 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua-Kona, a town on the west coast of Hawaii Island, also known as the Big Island, said Don Blakeman of the National Earthquake Information Center, part of the U.S. Geological Survey.

"The windows on all of the rooms started to buckle back and swaying and to wobble and making a loud noises and the rumbling was just intense," von Ancken said.

Gov. Linda Lingle issued a disaster declaration for the state and the state Civil Defense had several reports of minor injuries as aftershocks continued to shake the island chain.

"We were rocking and rolling," said Anne LaVasseur, who was on the second floor of a two-story, wood-framed house on the east side of the Big Island when the temblor struck. "I was pretty scared. We were swaying back and forth, like King Kong's pushing your house back and forth."

Lingle, who was in a hotel near the epicenter of the quake 10 miles northwest of Kailua-Kona, said the most serious injury reported to her was a broken arm.

The Pacific Tsunami Center reported a preliminary magnitude of 6.5, while the U.S. Geological Survey gave a preliminary magnitude of 6.6. To make matters worse, the quake struck during heavy rain, adding a risk of mudslides.

The earthquake was followed by several strong aftershocks, including one measuring a magnitude of 5.8, the Geological Survey said. Forecasters said there was no danger of a tsunami, though choppier-than-normal waves were predicted.

Earthquakes in the 6.0 magnitude range are rare in the region, which more commonly sees temblors in the 3- and 4-magnitude range caused by volcanic activity.

"We think this is a buildup from many volcanic earthquakes that they've had on the island," said Waverly Person, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The power outages were largely due to power plants turning off automatically when built-in seismic monitors were triggered by the earthquake. All electricity systems needed to be rebooted, which was expected to take several hours in more populated areas.

"We were totally prepared for a disaster such as this, but obviously with a disaster this big you can't be prepared for everything," Haraga told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Kona Community Hospital on the western side of Big Island was evacuated after large chunks of ceiling collapsed and power was cut off, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

At least 10 acute care patients were evacuated to a medical center in Hilo, said Terry Lewis, spokeswoman for the hospital. About 30 nursing care patients were being moved temporarily to a nearby conference center, she said.

"We were very lucky that no one got hurt," said Lewis.

Mayor Harry Kim estimated that as many as 3,000 people were evacuated from three hotels on the Big Island. Brad Kurokawa, Hawaii County deputy planning director, confirmed the hotels were damaged, but could not say how many people had left. They were being taken to a gymnasium until alternate accommodations could be found, he said.

The earthquake caused water pipes to explode at Aston Kona By The Sea, a condominium resort, creating a dramatic waterfall down the front of the hotel from the fourth floor, said Kenneth Piper, who runs the front desk.

"You could almost see the cars bouncing up and down in the parking garage," Piper said.

Hawaii's largest quake on record was an 1868 magnitude-7.9 earthquake that triggered a tsunami and spawned numerous landslides that resulted in 31 deaths, according to the USGS. The last strongest temblor was in 1983, registering a magnitude 6.7.

A FEMA computer simulation of the latest quake estimated that as many as 170 bridges on the Big Island could have suffered damage in the temblor, said Bob Fenton, FEMA director of response for the region. More than 50 federal officials were en route to the Big Island to assess damage and begin recovery work, he said.

Lingle told radio station KSSK that she toured the Kona area by helicopter to view the damage, including earth falling into Kealakekua Bay.

"You could see the water was turning brown," said Lingle.

On Hawaii Island, there was some damage in Kailua-Kona and a landslide along a major highway, said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Center. Officials also said there were reports of people trapped in elevators in Oahu.

In Waikiki, a top tourist destination on Oahu, worried visitors began lining up outside convenience stores for food, water and other supplies. Managers were letting tourists into the darkened stores one at a time.

Karie and Bryan Croes waited an hour to buy bottles of water, chips and bread.

"It's quite a honeymoon story," said Karie Croes, as they sat poolside in lounge chairs surrounded by grocery bags at ResortQuest Waikiki Beach Hotel.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Les Dorr said planes were arriving at Honolulu International Airport, but there were few departures. Security checkpoints were without power, so screeners were screening passengers and baggage manually.

Resorts in Kona were asked to keep people close to hotels, Kim told television station KITV. Cruise ships were told to keep tourists on board, and ships that were due to dock were asked to move on to their next location, he said.

"We are dealing with a lot of scared people," he said. The Big Island has about 167,000 residents, many of them in and around Hilo, on the opposite site of the island from where the quake was centered.

Emissions from air travel have doubled since 1990, to make up 6% of the UK's carbon footprint.

Forecasts suggest that the increase in flights will mean that, by 2050, emissions from aviation could be between four and 10 times higher than they were in 1990, making it almost impossible for the government to achieve its target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60%.

"The government has to confront the contradictions in its policies," said Dr Brenda Boardman, the project leader of Oxford University's environmental change institute.

"Unless the rate of growth in flights is curbed, the UK cannot fulfil its commitments on climate change. If government wants to be confident about achieving its targets, it has to undertake demand management. Relying on technological fixes alone is totally unrealistic."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the government was looking for "a balanced approach" to aviation.

"The government's principle of sustainable development for aviation is that a proper balance should be struck and maintained between economic, environmental and social considerations," she said.

"We agree that the 'polluter pays' principle should apply to aviation as to other sections, and that aviation should meet its external costs, including the costs of its contribution to climate change."

She said this was behind the government's move to include aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which will allow airlines to effectively buy a carbon quota from other, less polluting industries.

However, she added: "The government recognises that emissions trading, while it is a central element of policy, may not provide a full solution to the climate change impacts of aviation.

"We are continuing to explore and discuss the options for the use of other economic instruments for tackling the climate change impacts of aviation."

The Oxford University report - Predict and Decide: Aviation, climate change and UK policy - says that including airlines in the ETS will not happen until at least 2008 and "does not appear to be an adequate strategy for ensuring that the aviation sector contributes proportionately to reducing the UK's climate impact".

It said improvements in technology and air traffic management would have some impact on emissions, but would not be enough on their own.

It argues that increasing the tax passengers pay on flights will be a much more immediate and effective way to deter them from travelling.

It says the cost of leisure and business flights has fallen in real terms over the past 15 years, and this has driven at least 40% of the growth in air travel.

Increasing ticket prices by 10%, by raising air passenger duty, could reduce demand by between 5 and 15%, the report's authors said.

As the majority of flights are made by better-off sections of society who are taking advantage of cheap air travel to fly more, this would not prevent the less well-off from travelling but deter richer members of society from taking unnecessary flights.

Dr Sally Cairns, one of the report's authors, said: 'If the government wants to reduce aviation growth, it has the power to act now.

"Raising air passenger duty would help to counter reductions in fares, which are estimated to have been responsible for at least 40% of recent aviation growth.'

Her co-author, Dr Carey Newson, said there was evidence that the public would back an increase in taxes on air tickets.

Dr Newson said: "Opinion polls should encourage the government to revisit its aviation policy. A majority now favour airlines paying higher taxes to reflect environmental damage, even if this means higher airfares."

Joss Garman, a spokesman for the anti-air travel group Plane Stupid, said either the prime minister's policy on aviation or his policy on climate change had to give.

"What we're talking about here is 'our ability to live on earth', as Al Gore put it, versus our ability to live in Tuscany on the weekends," he said.

"As we casually float around the point of no return, the government needs to face the reality that its tax breaks for the aviation industry and its plans for airport expansion fly in the face of the science."

Researchers painstakingly used brushes and hand tools in order to preserve evidence of the impact trail and to date the event of the meteorite strike. Soil samples were also bagged and tagged, and organic material preserved for dating purposes.

Researchers documented every aspect of the dig from various scientific disciplines. Among them were an archaeologist, a paleontologist, a naturalist, geologists, astronomers, and even an animator, who recreated the meteor fall.

But Essam Heggy received the most attention. A planetary scientist at the Johnson Space Center's Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, it was his ground-penetrating technology that pinpointed the site and proved for the first time that the technology could be used to find objects buried deep in the ground and to make an accurate three-dimensional image of them.

"It validates the technique so we can use something similar to that instrument when we go to Mars," Reiff said.

Its location in the Pleistocene epoch soil layer puts the date of impact closer to 10,000 years ago, which disputes the commonly held theory that the Brenham meteorite fell 20,000 years ago.

"We know it is recent," said Carolyn Sumners, director of Astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as she surveyed progress on the dig. "Native Americans could have seen it."

The Brenham meteorite scattered more than three tons of meteorite fragments in the vicinity. The meteorite field was discovered in 1882. Pieces of the Brenham meteorite have also been found as far away as 1,000 miles -- transported by Native American traders and buried in mounds by the Hopewell people more than 1,500 years ago.

Some pieces were pounded into iron knives, ear ornaments, chisels, buttons and beads.

For thousands of years, meteorites were the primary source of iron metal for peoples around the world. All natural iron rusts, or oxidizes. But only meteoritic iron is mixed with nickel, forming a steel alloy that is extremely strong and rust-resistant.

The scientific expedition of the meteorite strewn field in western Kansas was put together by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and led by meteorite hunters Steve Arnold and Philip Mani. Johnson Space Center's Lunar and Planetary Institute, the Rice Space Institute at Rice University and George Observatory in Houston also sent researchers.

"What is unique is not the size, but the fact it was found in context," said Patricia Reiff, director of the Rice Space Institute.