Tsunami waves have reached California and Hawaii following a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia’s far east coast, but most US states have downgraded alerts as fears of a major impact subside.
Tsunami waves breached the US mainland west coast at California’s San Francisco at 1:12am (08:12 GMT) Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service for the San Francisco Bay Area. The tsunami is also impacting the state’s coastal Arena Cove area and making its way further down the coast, the National Weather Service reported.
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A tsunami warning – representing the highest-level threat – remains in place for coastal areas of the state spanning from Cape Mendocino to the Oregon/California border. A less severe advisory covers the coastline from the California/Mexico border to Cape Mendocino, California, including San Francisco Bay.
Further south-west in the Pacific, 1-1.2-metre (3.3-3.9 feet) waves began impacting the US Hawaiian Islands shortly after 8:00pm local time Tuesday (06:00 GMT on Wednesday, July 30), according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC). However, in an update, the centre said it did not expect a major tsunami to strike the state and downgraded its tsunami warning to an advisory, meaning people who had evacuated can return home.
“It does appear that Hawaii has avoided a major tsunami, which it feared it might be subjected to, but it did record a tsunami surge of at least a metre,” reported Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Elsewhere in the US, tsunami advisories were issued for parts of Oregon, Washington and Alaska, where tsunami waves were detected by coastal gauges along the east Aleutian Islands and the Pacific side of the Alaska Peninsula.
The impact of the tsunami could last for hours or perhaps more than a day, said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator with the National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska.
“In this case, because of the Earth basically sending out these huge ripples of water across the ocean, they’re going to be moving back and forth for quite a while,” said Snider.
But the threat of a major tsunami hitting the United States “has passed completely”, said US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
“We’re in really good shape right now,” said Noem from Santiago, Chile where she is attending meetings with officials. “We were fully deployed and ready to respond if necessary, but grateful that we didn’t have to deal with the situation that this could have been.”
The tsunami threat comes as the aftermath of the 8.8 quake in Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka region – one of the largest on record – also put residents on alert in coastal areas of parts of Russia, Latin America and numerous Asian and Pacific island states.
Waves up to 4 metres (13ft) high struck Russia’s far-eastern Kamchatka region, causing some buildings to be submerged and forcing thousands of citizens in impacted islands to evacuate. Russian authorities later said there were no casualties and lifted their tsunami alert for the country’s Far East.
Japan, which due to its proximity to the quake had been bracing for severe damage, has also downgraded all its tsunami alerts.
But in South America, Chile has declared a tsunami red alert for certain areas along the country’s northern and southern coastlines, while Peru – expecting high waves of up to 2.31 metres (7.6 feet) – has closed dozens of ports.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
