Quake off Russia sparks Pacific tsunamis

CHIBA, Japan — One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Russia's sparsely populated Far East on Wednesday, causing tsunamis up to 4 meters across the Pacific and sparking evacuations from Hawaii to Japan.

The magnitude 8.8 quake struck off Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky 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 4 meters high in some areas, reached as far as the town's World War II monument about 400 meters 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-run TV channel 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.

Later on Wednesday, the authorities in the Kamchatka Peninsula announced the tsunami warning had been lifted.

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.

In Japan, nearly 2 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 escape, local media reported.

A 1.3-meter high tsunami reached a port in the northern prefecture of Iwate, Japan's weather agency said.

By Wednesday evening, the agency had downgraded its tsunami alerts — issued for much of the archipelago — to advisories.

Nuclear safety

Japanese nuclear power plants reported no abnormalities. The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant damaged by the 2011 tsunami said about 4,000 workers are taking shelter on higher ground at the plant complex while monitoring remotely to ensure safety.

In Hawaii, Governor Josh Green said flights in and out of the island of Maui had been canceled as a precaution.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later downgraded the alert for Hawaii to an advisory and local authorities canceled a coastal evacuation order.

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 epicenter of the earthquake is roughly the same as the massive 9.0 temblor that year, which resulted in a destructive, Pacific-wide tsunami, according to the US Geological Survey.

Agencies via Xinhua