HOTEL EVACUATED

Tongan officials said they were checking outer islands in the group, particularly the low-lying Hapai Islands, which were near the epicentre. The Tonga islands are an archipelago east of Australia, southeast of Fiji and northeast of New Zealand.

About 140 hotel guests were evacuated from the seaside Holiday Inn hotel in the Fijian capital Suva. The tourists scrambled in the dark up a slippy hill behind the hotel.

"People were very frightened," said Australian Alexandra Procailo. Australian Sharone Baskerville said her husband just said: "Grab your passport and a bit of money".

Fijian authorities said there were no reports of damage or tidal changes, but the country was on a 24-hour watch and people living along the coast and hotels and resorts were on full alert.

Samoa's prime minister announced the closure of all schools in a pre-dawn radio broadcast, while all police leave had been cancelled and officers ordered to report immediately.

Fiji's National Disaster Management Office said there was a need to improve communication between emergency service organisations for more efficient disaster warnings.

The Pacific will stage a tsunami warning drill on May 16-17.

Geoscience Australia seismologist David Jepson said the tsunami alert was prudent as the Tonga quake was regarded as a very significant event, although much smaller than the quake that caused the 2004 tsunami.

"It is easier to cancel a warning than for people to be drowned," Jepson said."Shallow earthquakes of this size can be very destructive and can cause serious damage up to 500 kilometres (31 miles) from the epicentre.

But New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said the Tonga quake on the northern end of the boundary between the Pacific and Australian plates was unlikely to generate a tsunami across the Pacific towards New Zealand.

"When the wave propagates away, it goes northwest and southeast. That's almost perpendicular to where we are. The amount of wave coming off the ends of it toward us is just really minimal," said institute oceanographer Roy Walters.