Hi all nepali in hawaii, hope you are safe !


10-16) 08:35 PDT -- Hawaiian officials are working this morning to assess damage to infrastructure, including roads and bridges, one day after a 6.7 magnitude earthquake and more than 40 aftershocks rocked the tropical islands, collapsing roofs and causing landslides and widespread power outages.

Electricity has been restored to about half of the customers on Oahu, and nearly all power is back on the island of Hawaii, known as the Big Island, officials said. However, several roads on the Big Island are closed this morning, according to the Civil Defense Agency.

The U.S. Geological Survey today raised the magnitude for the quake from a preliminary 6.6 to 6.7.

Nearly all flights to and from the Hawaiian islands are back on schedule this morning, Bay Area airport officials reported, following delays and cancellations Sunday.

San Francisco International Airport spokesman Mike McCarron said all four carriers that travel to and from Hawaii are back at full operation, except one American Airlines flight to Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, which was canceled this morning, and a flight from the island of Maui that was also canceled.

McCarron reported short security lines at the airport, which handles about a dozen flights to and from the island state daily.

A spokesman at Oakland International Airport said officials do not anticipate any disruptions or delays on Hawaii-bound flights this morning. Aloha Airlines spokesman Stu Gloverman said the carrier stayed on schedule out of Oakland even on Sunday, and would continue its two daily flights to Maui and Honolulu today.

Rick Hightower, a spokesman ATA Airlines, said the carrier's 10 flights in and out of Oakland Airport are on time today. He said ATA flights would be crowded, as the airline attempts to get passengers whose flights were canceled or delayed Sunday onto planes this morning.

"Everything is on time and it looks good, we're just going to have fuller planes," Hightower said. "It's much, much better today -- I think we have all recovered from a long day yesterday."

In San Jose, airport spokeswoman Joanne Sansilippo said a Hawaiian Airlines flight scheduled to land around 9 p.m. Sunday night finally arrived at 7:15 a.m. today. The daily flight was scheduled to depart on time at 8:50 a.m., she added.

All of the airport officials suggested that passengers check in with individual airlines to make sure their flights are on time.

Sunday's quake was the tropical islands' biggest in 23 years and occurred about 10 miles north-northeast of Kalaoa, a city on the west coast of the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island. Landslides caused by the temblor blocked a major highway on the island and other roads around the region.

Gov. Linda Lingle issued a disaster declaration for the whole state as a result of damage to buildings and roads. The state Civil Defense office received several reports of injuries, but there were no known fatalities.

The quake hit at 7:07 a.m. local time. Its aftershocks included one jolt that reached magnitude 5.8 and another that hit 4.4, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. Most were concentrated near the island of Hawaii, though a handful hit as far away as the coast of Lanai 100 miles north.

At least one stretch of road leading to a bridge near the earthquake's epicenter on the Big Island collapsed, Civil Defense Agency spokesman Dave Curtis said Monday.

Several other roads on the Big Island were closed by mudslides, debris and boulders, but most were still passable, he said.

A government computer simulation estimated as many as 170 bridges could have been damaged by the quake, said Bob Fenton, Federal Emergency Management Agency director of response for the region.

"We just sat up and watched things fall down around us," Big Island resident Ann Kalber said during a telephone interview Sunday. "We definitely have a kinship with people who live in earthquake areas."

Ceilings collapsed at the Kona Community Hospital on the western side of the Big Island. Some acute care patients were evacuated, and others were temporarily moved to a nearby conference center. There also were reports of vacationers evacuated from several damaged hotels and others trapped in elevators on Oahu.

More than 50 federal emergency officials were traveling Sunday to the Big Island to evaluate the damage, officials said.

While the Big Island experiences thousands of minor earthquakes every year, most are due to volcanic activity and the movement of magma below the Earth's crust. Experts said Sunday's quake was likely the result of tectonic plates shifting, the trigger for most California temblors.

The last strong Hawaiian earthquake struck in 1983 and had a 6.7 magnitude, causing considerable property damage on the Big Island and collapsing trails on Mauna Loa volcano. The largest recorded Hawaiian earthquake hit in 1868 in the Ka'u District on Hawaii and at a magnitude of 7.9. It was blamed for 77 deaths.