Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Freak Wave Crushes Cars, Injures People

A wall of water up to 18 feet high rose out of a calm sea and crashed onto Daytona Beach, Fla., smashing hundreds of vehicles and causing 75 minor injuries, officials and witnesses said. An undersea landslide apparently caused the 27-mile-long rogue wave, a federal seismologist said. Witnesses said people were bleeding and car windows were smashed after the water receded. Sailboats were piled on top of vehicles on the drive-on beach. Tow trucks pulled out cars shoved under the boardwalk. “We are truly lucky this thing happened at 11 p.m. Friday night and not 11 a.m. this morning,” said Volusia County Chief Beach Ranger John Kirvan. “We’d be counting the dead if it had.”