Strong waves destroy homes in Central America, batter Galapagos.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Big waves generated by a storm 2,000 miles away battered a long stretch of the Pacific coast, wrecking homes, hotels and restaurants from Peru to Central America, civil defense officials said Tuesday.

There were no reports of deaths from the several days of heavy surf, but hundreds of people were evacuated from coastal communities. Lesser damage also was reported in southern Mexico.

Experts said the event was not a tsunami, the massive waves triggered by undersea earthquakes.

Hugh Cobb, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said the waves were caused by a powerful South Pacific storm that was sending swells up to 12-feet high across the ocean, hitting beaches from Ecuador's Galapagos Islands to the Mexican resort of Acapulco.