One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Russia’s sparsely populated Far East on Wednesday, causing tsunamis up to four metres (12 feet) high across the Pacific and sparking evacuations from Hawaii to Japan.
The magnitude 8.8 quake struck off Petropavlovsk on Russia’s remote Kamchatka peninsula, and was the largest since 2011 when one of magnitude 9.1 off Japan and a subsequent tsunami killed more than 15,000 people.
Russian authorities said a tsunami hit and flooded the port town of Severo-Kurilsk, crashing through the port area and submerging the local fishing plant.
Authorities said the population of around 2,000 people was evacuated.
The waves — which were up to four metres high in some areas — reached as far as the town’s World War II monument about 400 metres from the shore line, according to Mayor Alexander Ovsyannikov.
Several people were injured in Russia by the quake, state media reported, but none seriously.
“The walls were shaking,” a Kamchatka resident told state media Zvezda.
“It’s good that we packed a suitcase, there was one with water and clothes near the door. We quickly grabbed it and ran out… It was very scary,” she said.
– Millions advised to evacuate –
Officials from countries with a Pacific coastline in North and South America — including the United States, Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia — issued warnings to avoid threatened beaches and low-lying areas.
In Japan, nearly two million people were advised to evacuate, and many left by car or on foot to higher ground.
One woman was killed as she drove her car off a cliff as she tried to evacuate, local media reported.
A 1.3-metre high tsunami reached a port in the northern prefecture of Iwate, Japan’s weather agency said.
In Hawaii, governor Josh Green said flights in and out of the island of Maui had been cancelled as a precaution.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later downgraded the alert for Hawaii to an advisory and local authorities cancelled a coastal evacuation order.
Earlier, tsunami sirens blared near Hawaii’s popular Waikiki surf beach where an AFP photographer saw gridlocked traffic as Hawaiians escaped to higher ground.
“STAY STRONG AND STAY SAFE!” US President Donald Trump said on social media.
– Pacific alerts –
Wednesday’s quake was the strongest in the Kamchatka region since 1952, the regional seismic monitoring service said, warning of aftershocks of up to 7.5 magnitude.
The epicentre is roughly the same as the massive 9.0 quake that year which resulted in a destructive, Pacific-wide tsunami, according to the USGS.
The organisation said it was one of the 10 strongest earthquakes ever recorded.
On Wednesday at least six aftershocks further rattled the Russian Far East, including one of 6.9 magnitude and another listed at 6.3.
The US Tsunami Warning Centers said waves exceeding three metres above the tide level were possible along some coasts of Ecuador, northwestern Hawaiian islands and Russia.
Between one- and three-metre waves were possible along some coasts of Chile, Costa Rica, French Polynesia, Hawaii, Japan and other islands in the Pacific, it said.
Waves of up to one metre were possible elsewhere, including Australia, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, Tonga and Taiwan.
– Fukushima evacuated –
At Inage Beach in Chiba prefecture in Japan, a security perimeter was set up, and a rescue worker told AFP that the seaside area was off limits until further notice.
“I didn’t expect there to be a tsunami; I actually made a joke about it when we heard (the alert),” Canadian tourist Leana Lussier, 17, told AFP.
Workers at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan — destroyed by a huge quake and tsunami in 2011 — were evacuated, its operator said.
In Taitung in Taiwan, hotel resort worker Wilson Wang, 31, told AFP: “We’ve advised guests to stay safe and not go out, and to avoid going to the coast.”
Pacific nation Palau, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the Philippines, ordered the evacuation of “all areas along the coastline”.
Waves of up to four metres are expected overnight in the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, authorities said in a press statement.
bur-stu/fox/mtp
© Agence France-Presse
