"We were visiting remote islands where we work by boat this past week and there's no running water on the island, there's no electricity and the houses are on stilts and the actual sides of the houses are woven together from vegetation.
"The houses are 20 to 50m from the beach and I remember thinking if a tsunami hit here, communities such as these would be extremely vulnerable."
Red Cross medic Donna Collins is on the island of Malaita. She was shaken awake in the early hours of the morning. photo/ supplied
The Solomon Islands Red Cross has activated its emergency operations centre and is on standby for response.
Red Cross medic Donna Collins is on Malaita Island as part of a dengue fever education project.
She was also woken by the quake, rushing outside when it hit.
"I had time to chuck some clothes on and I went outside - we're in a lodge and I wasn't sure how secure it was," Collins said.
The nurse and midwife was in Nepal last year as part of the relief effort from April's deadly 7.8 quake when the second one hit in May.
She said the feeling on Malaita was similar, but lasted longer.
"it seemed to go on for quite a while, it was a good minute and a half."
After hearing of a tsunami warning through Facebook, Collins grabbed her colleague and their bags and raced to higher ground in the pitch black.
She couldn't see any damage from high ground, and locals seemed relatively unfazed by the tsunami threat.
"At the time it was certainly very shocking and it was one of those feelings where you're not sure if it's going to stop or if it's going to get worse."
Baba had heard there were no reports of damage in Honiara at this stage, and from her view at the top of a valley she could not see damage to the "precarious" houses around her.
She was unsure yet if residents in the valley below had evacuated, but had received confirmation her six volunteers were okay and had moved to higher ground.
A tsunami alert had been downgraded to a tsunami watch in the area, she said.
Damaging waves are still expected to hit the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.
A previous tsunami threat for New Zealand has been lifted.
