Shocked and injured tourists described how another day in paradise turned into a watery hell as their Samoan beach chalets were pounded into shards by a terrifying tsunami.

Within seconds, once stunning resorts set between green, hibiscus-filled tropical gardens and dreamy white beaches, were transformed into debris-strewn graveyards.

Australian racehorse-trainer John Blacker was treating his wife, Maree, to a 50th birthday holiday until she was torn from his arms and lost to the deadly waves.

"I thought I was a goner," Blacker told Hobart's Mercury newspaper. "I couldn't grab on to anything until the last second. It was a palm tree... I was just able to grab it."

"The debris was still bashing into me," he added. "I took in a lot of water, but there was no way I was going through all that again, I wasn't letting go, I wasn't letting go."

Teacher Claire Rowlands recounted how the waves left her blinded, naked and facing death when a stranger told her to get up and flee, saving her life.

"There was a lull, I had no clothes on and I couldn't see, I don't know why, maybe it was from being bashed about, and I heard this woman," she told The Australian newspaper from her hospital bed.

"She threw me a lava-lava (sarong) to cover myself and told me to get up and walk, get up and walk, there is another wave coming, follow me.

"I got up, wrapped myself and she guided me, and then the wave came and I got behind a coconut tree. I didn't get washed out and we were able to climb to the top of the hill."

Swiss tourist Agata Meller described the horror of seeing a New Zealander surfing the tsunami as the waters surged around him.

"He surfed the tsunami"

"There was this Kiwi guy out on the waves, we could see him, way out as the water was sucked out there and I couldn't watch, I just thought he's dead, he's dead," she told AFP.

"We made it up onto the hill and we saw him, up there riding the tsunami wave in. He told us later he could feel the quake lifting the water, making it jump, and when he saw the water go out he knew he had to ride it in. He surfed the tsunami, can you believe it? He will never catch a wave that big again in his life."

They are stories that would have seemed incredible when the visitors checked into thatched bungalows on pristine white sands, looking forward to lazy days in Samoa's tropical idyll.

"It's not paradise any more — it's hell on earth," one survivor said of the tragedy, which is feared to have killed 180 people in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.

"...it will never be the same again...

Doctor Rob Atkinson, part of Australia's emergency response, said many people had "tiny cuts everywhere going in all directions thanks to the sharp rocks and coral."

"They look as though they have been churned up in a massive really dirty washing machine because they basically have been," he said.

Brazilian tourist Luis Obriges said Lalomano had been "the most beautiful place, white sand beaches and crystal waters" before the quake struck.

But then everything began to move from side to side, his bed was flung against the other side of the room "and the women were screaming 'Get out, get out'."

"We stood outside, watching and the water — swoosh — it just disappeared. That's when people started screaming 'tsunami' and we just ran, all ran for the forest," he told AFP.

"I wish more than anything to still have my photos of that place, it will never be the same again."

AFP

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