Dawn vigils were held across the country for victims of the tsunami, which also claimed 34 lives in American Samoa and nine in Tonga. In a freak seismic catastrophe, three quakes in rapid succession measuring magnitude 7.8 to 8.1 unleashed waves as high as 15 metres (50 feet) that flattened villages and tourist resorts.

Head of state Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi he was still haunted by the images that confronted him when he visited the disaster zone with Prime Minister Tu'u'u Anasi'i Leota.

"The anguish and raw pain we witnessed when dead or dying bodies were recovered from thickets, bush or trees, sent our emotions awry and our tears flowing freely," he said in a televised national address.

"The tsunami swept through more than just the physical life of Samoa. It also swept through our spiritual, religious, cultural, social, mental, emotional and material lives." In a chilling reminder of the danger still facing residents in the Pacific's quake-prone "Ring of Fire", an earthquake rocked Samoa about an hour after the dawn services. [ YAHOO NEWS ]