No deaths, serious injuries from Hawaii quakes

HONOLULU — Hawaii Baptists are expressing thanks that no deaths or serious injuries were reported when a 6.7-magnitude earthquake shook the island chain around 7 a.m. local time Oct. 15. The quake was the strongest to hit Hawaii in more than two decades, and it was followed by several aftershocks, including one measuring 6.0. Bob Duffer, director of missions for the Neighbor Islands Baptist Associations of Hawaii, said First Baptist Church, Waimea, in Kamuela on the Big Island sustained some water damage from broken pipes and some broken windows. At the parsonage there, a chimney fell and caused some structural damage.

Waikoloa Baptist Church, also on the Big Island, was closest to the epicenter of the earthquake, and the church’s pastor, Emerson Wiles, said people were grateful to be recovering possessions rather than lost lives. “Surprisingly, there’s very little damage in our entire village,” Wiles said. “I know there are a few houses that had some of their foundations messed up, and several rock walls have fallen.”