Pacific tsunami toll 113 and rising

The confirmed death toll from a massive South Pacific earthquake and tsunami had risen to 113 by late Tuesday and was expected to rise further, officials said.

Dozens more people were missing and feared dead, but officials in the three South Pacific island nations said communications were down to many outlying villages.

“There are 47 known dead,” the press secretariat at the prime minister’s department in Apia said in a brief statement following a meeting of the Disaster Management Council.