8.7-magnitude earthquake in Russia's Far East sets off tsunami warnings in Japan, Alaska, Hawaii

Pic/AFP

A tsunami has hit coastal areas of Russia's Kuril Islands and Japan's large northern island of Hokkaido after an 8.7-magnitude earthquake early Wednesday. Tsunami warning sirens blared Tuesday in Honolulu and people were told to move to higher ground. The Japan Meteorological Agency said a first tsunami wave of about 30 centimeters reached Nemuro on the eastern coast of Hokkaido.

The first tsunami wave hit the coastal area of Severo-Kurilsk, the main settlement on Russia's Kuril Islands in the Pacific, according to the local governor Valery Limarenko. He said residents were safe and staying on high ground until the threat of a repeat wave was gone. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves of 1 to 3 meters above tide level were possible along some coastal areas of Hawaii, Chile, Japan and the Solomon Islands. Waves of more than 3 meters were possible along some coastal areas of Russia and Ecuador.

Russia's Tass news agency reported from the biggest city near the epicenter, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, that many people ran out into the street without shoes or outerwear. Cabinets toppled inside homes, mirrors were broken, cars swayed in the street and balconies on buildings shook noticeably. Tass also reported power outages and mobile phone service failures in the capital of the Kamchatka region.

Tass also quoted a local Russian official as saying residents on Sakhalin Island were being evacuated and emergency services were working at full capacity. The National Tsunami Warning Center, based in Alaska, issued a tsunami warning for parts of the Alaska Aleutian Islands, and a watch for portions of the West Coast, including California, Oregon, and Washington, and Hawaii.

The advisory also includes a vast swath of Alaska's coast line, including parts of the panhandle. Earlier in July, five powerful quakes ' the largest with a magnitude of 7.4 ' struck in the sea near Kamchatka. The largest quake was at a depth of 20 kilometers and was 144 kilometers east of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, which has a population of 180,000. On Nov. 4, 1952, a magnitude 9.0 quake in Kamchatka caused damage but no reported deaths despite setting off 9.1-meter (30-foot) waves in Hawaii.

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