Inspectors check for damage in Hawaii after magnitude 6.7 earthquake knocked out power

HONOLULU — Officials began inspecting bridges and roads across Hawaii early Monday following the strongest earthquake to rattle the islands in more than two decades, a 6.7-magnitude quake that caused blackouts and landslides but no reported fatalities.

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. The power were back on across most of the islands Monday morning. About a dozen schools were closed for inspection, but no major injuries or deaths had been reported.

"If you're going to have an earthquake, you couldn't have had it at a better time — early in the morning when people aren't even out of their homes yet," Curtis said.

"I think people, under the circumstances, have remained very calm," he said.

The quake hit at 7:07 a.m. Sunday, 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua-Kona, on the west coast of Hawaii Island, known as the Big Island, said Don Blakeman of the National Earthquake Information Center, part of the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS on Monday raised the magnitude for the quake from a preliminary 6.6 to 6.7.

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.

Gov. Linda Lingle, who was in a hotel near the epicenter, issued a disaster declaration for the state, and the state Civil Defense had several reports of minor injuries as aftershocks continued to shake the island chain.

"We were rocking and rolling," said Anne LaVasseur, who was on the second floor of a two-story, wood-framed house on the east side of the Big Island when the temblor struck. "I was pretty scared. We were swaying back and forth, like King Kong's pushing your house back and forth."

The shaking broke water pipes at ResortQuest Kona By The Sea, turning the front of the building into a dramatic waterfall starting at the fourth floor, said Kenneth Piper, who runs the front desk.

"You could almost see the cars bouncing up and down in the parking garage," Piper said.