Police officers and fire brigade and emergency services workers this morning scoured the wreckage caused by the tsunami in Samoa, recovering more bodies from the scores of people swept away by the waves.
The Prime Minister of Samoa, Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi, who was inspecting the devastation of the village of Poutasi, said the people of Samoa had been given warnings about the dangers of tsunamis and he believed there would have been a lot more dead had people not been alerted.
He said, as of this morning, there were 77 confirmed dead and about 150 injured but an unknown number of people were missing.
Samoa's Commissioner for Fire and Emergency Services, Tony Hill, said that, in just one area of the Lalomanu Resort, where he was searching, 19 bodies had been recovered.
At sea, police launches recovered two bodies yesterday morning and sent them into shore by rubber duckie.
Mr Hill said his searches had found three Australian passports and three New Zealand passports but it was not known whether the holders of those passports were alive or dead.
He said the tsunami, which hit the islands in the South Pacific shortly after 7am yesterday Sydney time, caught many people who were still sleeping, drowning them.
Cio Taufua, 17, said he was in a car at the Lalomanu Resort when the tsunami hit. He escaped the building but was swept a long way by the swirling waters, badly gashing his leg against a submerged water tank.
"I thought I was going to die," he said.
"When the waters went down I saw the body of a European woman near me and I carried her to clear ground."
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Nearby, Fuimaono Rosa, who belongs to the Taufua family, said the tsunami had killed 13 members of her extended family in that one area.
She said 10 of the bodies had been recovered and there was an intense search going on for the other three.
Ms Fuimaono said about 100 tourists were staying at her beach resort when the tsunami struck and she did not know how many of them had survived.
Elsewhere along the coast, there were some extraordinary stories of heroism and survival.
Danny Robes, 63, of the Melbourne-based Pasifika Foundation Group, a volunteer organisation for welfare, swam three times through the tsunami waters at Saleapaga to rescue children who were clinging to trees.
"The waters were rising and they would have drowned if I had not reached them," he said.
"I got them to the nearby Samoan Christian Church where the water was only up to the shins."
But Ave Tualania said four members of his extended family, including children JJ, 3, and Marilyn, almost one, had been lost.
William Sasulu, at Salepage, had managed to save two of his young sons but the body of the third, Jamie, aged three years and nine months, had yet to be recovered.
"There were 15 people in the house. All got out but Jamie, and I had to get to the roof with one of my other sons in my arms," he said.
Crosette Laegalo, also at Salepage, said there had been 300 people in the village and it had been flattened. She had run a tourist business and a supermarket and had just ordered in $6000 worth of stock including, tables, chairs and sinks. It had all been lost and there was no insurance, she said