A major 8.0 magnitude earthquake jolted the Solomon Islands Wednesday with small tsunami waves buffeting Pacific coasts, leaving at least five people dead and dozens of homes damaged or destroyed. A quake-generated wave of just under one metre (three feet) reached parts of the Solomons, and Vanuatu and New Caledonia also reported rising sea levels, before a region-wide tsunami alert was lifted. Sirens were heard in Fiji, locals said. "Chaos in the streets of Suva as everyone tries to avoid the tsunami!!" tweeted Ratu Nemani Tebana from the Fiji capital.

A major 8.0 magnitude earthquake jolted the Solomon Islands Wednesday with small tsunami waves buffeting Pacific coastlines, leaving at least five people dead and dozens of homes damaged or destroyed. A quake-generated wave of just under one metre (three feet) reached parts of the Solomons, and Vanuatu and New Caledonia also reported rising sea levels, before a region-wide tsunami alert was lifted. Sirens were heard in Fiji, locals said. "Chaos in the streets of Suva as everyone tries to avoid the tsunami!!" tweeted Ratu Nemani Tebana from the Fiji capital.

The tsunami that hit the Solomon Islands on Wednesday after an 8.0-magnitude quake was the latest incidence of destructive waves being created by large undersea tremors. Here is a chronology of some of the major tsunamis around the world since December 2004, when more than 226,000 people were killed around the Indian Ocean in one of the world's worst ever natural disasters:

The 8.0-magnitude quake that struck off the Solomon Islands on Wednesday, while massive, was far less powerful than other "superquakes" to have struck around the world in recent decades. Here is a list of the greatest earthquakes since the beginning of the 20th century, according to the moment magnitude scale. - May 22, 1960: A 9.5-magnitude earthquake, the biggest ever recorded, kills 5,700 people in Chile while the tsunami it triggers leaves 130 dead in Japan and 61 in Hawaii.