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A massive tsunami hurled by a powerful earthquake flattened Samoan villages and swept cars and people out to sea, killing at least 99 and leaving dozens missing Wednesday. The toll was expected to rise.

Survivors fled the fast-churning water for higher ground on the South Pacific islands and remained huddled there hours after the quake, with a magnitude between 8.0 and 8.3, struck around dawn Tuesday.

The quake was centered about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Samoa, an island nation of 180,000 people located about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii. It was about 120 miles (190 kilometers) from neighboring American Samoa, a U.S. territory that is home to 65,000 people.

Four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high roared ashore on American Samoa, reaching up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland, Mike Reynolds, superintendent of the National Park of American Samoa, was quoted as saying by a parks service spokeswoman.

The same day, western Indonesia was rocked by a strong underwater quake, briefly triggering a tsunami alert for countries along the Indian Ocean and sending panicked residents out of their houses. The alert was later canceled.

The Samoan capital, Apia, was virtually deserted by afternoon, with schools and businesses closed. Hours after the waves struck, fresh sirens rang out with another tsunami alert and panicked residents headed for higher ground again, although there was no indication of a new quake.

In American Samoa’s capital of Pago Pago, the streets and fields were filled with ocean debris, mud, overturned cars and several boats as a massive cleanup effort continued into the night. Several buildings in the city — just a few feet above sea level — were flattened. Several areas were expected to be without electricity for up to a month.

In Washington, President Obama has declared a major disaster for American Samoa.

In a statement issued early Wednesday, Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, “will keep those who have lost so much in our thoughts and prayers.”

Hampered by power and communications outages, officials in the South Pacific islands struggled to determine damage and casualties.

Samoan police commissioner Lilo Maiava told The Associated Press that police there had confirmed 63 deaths but that officials were still searching the devastated areas, so the number of deaths might rise soon.

At least 30 people were killed on American Samoa, Gov. Togiola Tulafono said, adding that the toll was expected to rise as emergency crews were recovering bodies overnight.

“I don’t think anybody is going to be spared in this disaster,” said Tulafono, who was in Hawaii for a conference. He added that a member of his extended family was among the dead in the disaster.

Authorities in Tonga confirmed at least six additional people dead in the island nation west of the Samoas, New Zealand’s acting Prime Minister Bill English said. He said Tongan officials told him that four people were missing after the tsunami swept ashore on the northern island of Niua.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told Seven Network in Australia that two Australians had died, including a 6-year-old girl. The British Foreign Office said one Briton was missing and presumed dead.

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi looked shaken Wednesday on board a flight from Auckland, New Zealand, to the Samoan capital of Apia.

“So much has gone. So many people are gone,” he told reporters on board. “I’m so shocked, so saddened by all the loss.”

Malielegaoi said his own village of Lepa was destroyed.

“Thankfully, the alarm sounded on the radio and gave people time to climb to higher ground,” he said. “But not everyone escaped.”

Gov. Tulafono said that because the closeness of the community, “each and every family is going to be affected by someone who’s lost their life.” He spoke to reporters before boarding a Coast Guard C-130 plane in Hawaii to return home. The plane, which also carried officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and aid, was scheduled to arrive at about 7 a.m. local time (2 p.m. EDT; 1800 GMT). The U.S. disaster agency said it was also preparing supplies stored in Hawaii for transport to the island chain.

A New Zealand P3 Orion maritime surveillance airplane had reached the region Wednesday afternoon and had searched for survivors off the coast, he said. It was expected to resume searching at first light.

The Samoa Red Cross estimated that about 15,000 people were affected by the tsunami.

New Zealander Graeme Ansell said the Samoan beach village of Sau Sau Beach Fale was leveled.

“It was very quick. The whole village has been wiped out,” Ansell told New Zealand’s National Radio from a hill near Samoa’s capital, Apia. “There’s not a building standing. We’ve all clambered up hills, and one of our party has a broken leg. There will be people in a great lot of need ’round here.”

Residents in both Samoa and American Samoa reported being shaken awake by the quake early Tuesday, which lasted two to three minutes and was centered about 20 miles (30 kilometers) below the ocean floor. It was followed by at least three large aftershocks of at least 5.6 magnitude.

The quake came Tuesday morning for the Samoas, which lie just east of the international dateline. For Asia-Pacific countries on the other side of the line, it was already Wednesday.

The dominant industry in American Samoa — tuna canneries — was also affected. Chicken of the Sea’s tuna packing plant in American Samoa was forced to close although the facility wasn’t damaged, the San Diego-based company said.

The effects of the tsunami could be felt nearly 5,000 miles away (7,500 kilometers) on a Japanese island, though there were no reports of damage or injuries there.

U.S. officials said strong currents and dangerous waves were forecast from California to Washington state. No major flooding was expected, however. In Los Angeles, lifeguards said they would clear beaches at about 8 p.m.

While the earthquake and tsunami were big, they were not on the same scale of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, said Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle. That tsunami killed more than 230,000 in a dozen countries across Asia.

Last week Barack and Michelle Obama hosted a reception for visiting foreign dignitaries at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over the course of the evening, the president, whose “amazingly consistent” smile created a viral video, and first lady posed for over 130 photographs with their guests, all of which were later posted to the State Department’s Flickr page.

This caused a problem: Included was a shot of the Obamas posing with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, his wife Sonsoles Espinosa, and two daughters, Laura, 16, and Alba, 13, who’ve never had photographs of themselves published previously in print or online due to a Spanish law prohibiting the media from doing so. The photo of Zapatero and his family with the Obamas was quickly removed from Flickr at the request of the Spanish government but still lurks online (in the shot seen here their faces are blurred). The flap is adding concerns on the issue of the privacy of world leaders’ children in the digital age.

Writing on The Daily Beast today, Republican Senator John McCain’s daughter Meghan expressed sympathy for the girls, who’ve been labeled as “goth” in the photo. She says she’s also bewildered by the Spanish government’s reaction:

I want to start out by saying I can’t believe there is a country that exists where the media protects children of public figures, let alone the prime minister’s daughters. It is literally hard for me to fathom that there is a place that respects the privacy of underage children of politicians and diplomats. The second part of this that makes me very sad is that these two girls are enduring a sort of baptism by fire with the media scrutiny that surrounds their family portrait with the Obamas. Not only are they not used to being photographed, but their first foray into being photographed and criticized is on a very public scale with the most famous and powerful politicians in the entire world.

In addition to successfully lobbying the State Department to remove the photo, the Spanish government went so far as to have the state-owned Spanish news agency EFE refrain from distributing it.

The plethora of ridicule faced by Prime Minister Zapatero’s children is a reminder of the harsh scrutiny children of world leaders often face over their appearance. Here in the U.S., Chelsea Clinton, who was so closely protected that Time Magazine referred to her as “the Garbo of presidential children,” was dealt a harsh review by conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh during her father’s presidency, in addition to being called “ugly” in an off-color joke told by none other than Meghan McCain’s father at a Republican fundraiser in 1998. The Bush twins Jenna and Barbara were famously ridiculed for – and photographed – partying with friends.

The Spanish government’s policy toward Zapatero’s children contrasts with the tricky relationship between the U.S. media and first daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 8, who have been largely sheltered from the press but certainly haven’t been invisible. Back in June, photographers were allowed to photograph the president walking to get ice cream with his girls on Father’s Day weekend, not long after the White House requested that the press not publish a photo of Obama waving to Sasha as she stood on one of the White House balconies. Meanwhile, the official White House Flickr page contains numerous “behind the scenes” pictures of the Obama children.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently said that the administration would permit press access to the Obama children when they are part of “official events with the president and first lady,” but added that “there should be a wide berth of privacy extended to the family” when they’re alone or doing something as a family. He added that the White House’s Flickr photos of the children exist to control the paparazzi market for pictures of the Obama children, the youngest to occupy the White House since John and Caroline Kennedy, who were also fiercely guarded.

Sheltering their children is forcing modern world leaders to deal with challenges most of their predecessors never had to contend with: digital technology and the Internet. The influx of digital cameras and cell phones and the rise of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. make it easy for anyone to take a photograph and distribute it widely in a matter of minutes, making it virtually impossible for even the highest levels of government to keep the genie in the bottle.

David Scott is a Democrat who had to confront people angry over possible changes in health care at a town hall meeting. He’s also African-American. And his office has received faxes with racial slurs which he’s turned over to the FBI. And this week a swastika was spray-painted over his name at his suburban Atlanta district office. Scott blames conservative talk radio for injecting race into the health care debate. “Now when you look at Rush Limbaugh, saying, ‘Hey, we want Obama to fail’, what do you think that means for them? And they are using the American people. And they are pricking their conscience with this racism. That is so much there with us.  Just…And they know how to do it.” Scott says in his seven years in Congress, he’s never gotten this high a level of racial threats. For NPR News, I’m Susanna Capelouto in Atlanta.

The bodies of the five Italian tourists killed this, in this past weekend’s collision between a small private plane and a sightseeing helicopter, have been flown back to Italy. The crash which occurred Saturday over the Hudson River left a total of nine people dead. The final two victims’ bodies were pulled from the waters yesterday

There are continued reports of heavy fighting between US Marines and members of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan as a force there seeks to gain control of the strategic Taliban-held town ahead of critical elections next week. Officials say 500 US and Afghan troops exchanged heavy fire with insurgents, killing at least seven people.  And the ofensive, they say, is aimed at cutting off Taliban’s supply lines. It’s the first time NATO troops have entered the area which has been under Taliban control for several years.

Congressman David Scott of Georgia says racism has taken over the debates surrounding the overhaul of health care. From Georgia Public Broadcasting, Susanna Capelouto reports.