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Hawaii earthquake causes outages, mudslides

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— Officials fanned out across Hawaii early today to inspect bridges and roads following the strongest earthquake to rattle the islands in more than two decades, a 6.6-magnitude quake that caused blackouts and landslides, but no immediate reports of fatalities.

"The level of damage is still being assessed right now," Rodney Haraga, director of the Hawaii Department of Transportation, told CBS' "The Early Show" today.

"We know that on the Big Island we have had some problems with road closures, some rock slides and right now we're sending a team this morning to go to the Big Island to do an assessment on several highways."

The quake hit at 7:07 a.m. local time Sunday, 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua-Kona, a town on the west coast of Hawaii Island, also known as the Big Island, said Don Blakeman of the National Earthquake Information Center, part of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Haraga said power had been restored on Oahu to only about 50 percent of customers. Electricity on the Big Island was "practically all up" and Kauai had avoided power outages.

Gov. Linda Lingle 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.

Lingle, who was in a hotel near the epicenter of the quake 10 miles northwest of Kailua-Kona, said the most serious injury reported to her was a broken arm.

The Pacific Tsunami Center reported a preliminary magnitude of 6.5, while the U.S. Geological Survey gave a preliminary magnitude of 6.6. To make matters worse, the quake struck during heavy rain, adding a risk of mudslides.

The earthquake was followed by several strong aftershocks, including one measuring a magnitude of 5.8, the Geological Survey said. Forecasters said there was no danger of a tsunami, though choppier-than-normal waves were predicted.