A TSUNAMI warning has been issued for a wide swathe of islands...

A TSUNAMI warning has been issued for a wide swathe of islands in the South Pacific after a massive 8-magnitude quake hit off the Solomon Islands.

There are reports villages in the Solomon Islands were destroyed in the quake.

The quake struck at a depth of 5.8km at 11.07am AEDT, near the Santa Cruz Islands, which are part of the Solomon Islands nation.

The quake has been placed as being 70km west of Lata and nearly 600km from the national capital, Honiara.

Aftershocks measuring 5.6 and 6.4 on the Richter scale hit the area soon after. Quakes were also recorded off the Solomon Islands and off West Papua.

The PTWC warned that the large quake could trigger a "destructive tsunami" near the epicentre.



The centre has issued a tsunami warning for the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis and Futuna.

A tsunami watch has been issued for Australia and New Zealand, and all the way to Indonesia, but the weather bureau says there is no tsunami threat to Australia.

The Solomon Islands form part of the Ring of Fire, a zone of tectonic activity around the Pacific Ocean that is subject to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.