A state of emergency has been declared in American Samoa because of severe weather conditions resulting in damage to roads, infrastructure, property, and coastal villages.

American Samoa Governor Lemanu Peleti Mauga declared the state of emergency after homes, the school and church on Aunu’u island were swamped by huge waves, the building housing the generators on the island were flooded and sustained damage.

Several sections of the road are not accessible on the eastern side while Fatumafuti was covered with sand and debris and huge waves washed onto vehicles stalling them.

• READ MORE: Unexpected sea surges slam into Cook Islands and Tahiti

Bulldozers are at work clearing the highway and Utulei Beach has been littered with plastic bottles, wrappings and rocks.

Residents of east side villages said this was the worse they had seen as far as waves crashing onto the road.

Huge rocks, all sorts of debris and garbage was dumped onto low lying beach side roads from the eastern end of the island to the western most tip of the island.

On Tutuila, several sections of the road are not accessible on the eastern side while Fatumafuti was covered with sand and debris and huge waves washed onto vehicles stalling them.

The Emergency Operations Centre has been activated and Governor Lemanu said everyone’s cooperation was appreciated during this untimely event, and he asked that people in American Samoa remained vigilant and kept their families safe.

Flooding at Fatanafuti on Tetuila Island.

Pago Pago International Airport will remain closed due to damage from heavy waves to the runway, and all government offices are closed.

The Hawaiian Airlines flight scheduled for last night has also been cancelled and will resume as soon as the runway can reopen safely. Hawaiian Airlines is hoping the flight would operate today during the day.

Unexpected sea surges slam into Cook Islands and Tahiti
An unexpected weather event has damaged properties and flooded roads in the Cook Islands while French Polynesia is dealing with the aftermath of huge swells.

Swells of up to 4.5 metres inundating coastal areas, driven by a high pressure system pushing up from New Zealand have been labelled a highly unusual weather event by the Cook Islands Emergency Management Director John Strickland.

He said the impacts were the most far reaching he had seen in a decade.

“It was a sudden hit at night, there was damage that took place Tuesday night local time,” Strickland said.

He said there was an “unexpected sea surge” in Rarotonga.

“Rough seas, debris and rocks, you name it, it was shifted onto the road.”

Low lying coastal areas in Puaikura District along with Titikaveka, in Takitumu District, were the most severely impacted areas.

“At the Rarotongan Hotel, guests were shifted from their rooms, because some of the rooms were on the beach,” he said.

National emergency operation teams were activated from three vilages to support the infrastructure team as they were busy.

Strickland said while things have settled down, early on Thursday morning local time he received reports of northern Islands experiencing high seas, resulting in the closure of schools.

Emergency services remain on high alert and fresh warnings have been issued for the Northern parts of the Cook Islands.

A meeting is underway between Red Cross, police and other emergency teams.

Cook Islands’ meteorological service director Arona Ngari said homes were evacuated in Titikaveka and Arorangi districts.

“There seems to be a couple of events that have exceeded expectations and that revolves around a couple of the high tides. So it is a pity, it is awful to see the damage from the high pressure system,” he said.

Houses and roads submerged in French Polynesia
The level of the ocean surrounding French Polynesia has significantly risen and has submerged roads and houses bordering the oceans on the west coast of Tahiti.

La Premiere television reported that 15 houses on the coast were submerged and the homeowners evacuated.

French Polynesia was battered this week by 8-9 metre swells.

All marine and water related activities are forbidden for most of the territory including going to the beach.

According to local meteorological authorities this is an “exceptional phenomenon” which hasn’t been seen in French Polynesia since 2005.

A local fisherman, Benjamin Tematahotoa, said he is worried his boat will be lost in the flooding.

“Of course it’s worrying, thats why we are staying vigilant and we are staying here,” he said.

“If we really need to bring the boat back then we will tow it home. It’s stressful especially if this is only the start. It’s rising, it’s rising, every five minutes, it’s rising it looks like its going to keep rising”.

La Premiere reported that two surfers were injured while attempting to surf during the high swells.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s new NZ SeaRise website, designed to show how the country’s coastline will be affected by rising sea levels and land subsidence, has been hit by a cyber attack.

Project co-leader and Victoria University of Wellington earth sciences Professor Tim Naish said the website went live this morning at 5am, and since then it had been getting 10,000 hits per second which had ”just killed” the website.

”We’re trying to get it back up and running,” he said.

• READ MORE:  Climate change: sea levels rising twice as fast as thought in New Zealand
• Other climate change reports
• NZ SeaRise’s online tool — available here from 5am, today May 2.

”The guess is that these are anti-climate change people or the Russians — who knows.

”We don’t know for sure, but we think they’re using an autobot. They’re coming from an overseas IP address.

”It’s just hitting us with thousands of hits and our website can’t cope.”

It was frustrating because local government mayors were being asked to comment on the website, but were unable to because it was inaccessible at the moment, he said.

Frustrating for residents
It was also frustrating for residents interested in what was going to happen on their own land.

The NZ SeaRise website shows location-specific sea level rise projections to the year 2300, for every 2km of the coast of New Zealand.

Climate change and warming temperatures are causing sea levels to rise by 3.5mm a year on average, but until now, the levels did not take into account local vertical land movements.

Professor Naish said continuous small and large seismic events were adding up to cause subsidence in many parts of New Zealand, and the new projections showed the annual rate of sea level rise could double.

Project co-leader and GNS Science associate professor Richard Levy said the team had connected vertical land movement data with climate-driven sea level rise to provide locally-relevant sea level projections.

“Property owners, councils, infrastructure providers and others need to know how sea level will change in the coming decades so that they can consider how risks associated with flooding, erosion and rising groundwater will shift,” he said.

”We have estimated future sea levels for 7434 sites around our coastline. The largest increases in sea level will occur along the southeast North Island along the Wairarapa coast.

Land subsidence rates are high
”Here, land subsidence rates are high and sea level could rise by well over 1.5m by 2100 if we follow the least optimistic climate change scenario.

”In contrast, land is rising near Pikowai, in the Bay of Plenty, and uplift rates may keep pace with climate change-driven sea level rise, causing a small fall in sea level if we follow the most optimistic climate scenario.”

Dunedin and Invercargill were not likely to be any closer to inundation by the sea than had already been predicted, because ground movement in the South was ”quite stable”, he said.

Based on present international emissions reduction policies, global sea levels were expected to have risen about 0.6m by 2100, but for large parts of New Zealand that would double to about 1.2m because of ongoing land subsidence.

”We know that global sea-level rise of 25cm-30cm by 2060 is baked in and unavoidable regardless of our future emissions pathway, but what may be a real surprise to people is that for many of our most populated regions, such as Auckland and Wellington, this unavoidable rise is happening faster than we thought.”

Vertical land movements mean sea level changes might happen 20-30 years sooner than previously expected.

For many parts of New Zealand’s coast, 30cm of sea-level rise is a threshold for extreme flooding, above which the 100-year coastal storm becomes an annual event.

Climate change adaptation options
Joint Otago Regional and Dunedin City Councils’ South Dunedin Future group programme manager Jonathan Rowe welcomed the new information and said it would feed into many aspects of the councils’ work, particularly that relating to the South Dunedin programme which was considering climate change adaptation options.

ORC operations general manager Gavin Palmer said the information would also feed into flood protection planning to mitigate the impacts of sea level rise in other parts of coastal Otago, such as the Clutha Delta and the Taieri Plain.

Rowe said for South Dunedin, the new data confirmed previous guidance, that further sea level rise of 24cm-35cm was predicted by 2050-60, and up to 112cm by 2100, depending on global emissions.

A climate change adaptation plan would be presented to both councils in June, he said.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said the findings were “sobering” and the government’s first plan to cut emissions in every part of New Zealand, would be published later this month.

• The website appeared to be accessed normally later today with an earlier notice saying “The NZ SeaRise maps are down temporarily for maintenance” having been dropped.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. It was first published on the Otago Daily Times website.