A powerful 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday morning, triggering tsunami warnings and evacuation orders for Japan, parts of Russia, Alaska and the Pacific.
Japan’s meteorological agency said the quake occurred at 8:25am (2325 GMT Tuesday) and registered a preliminary magnitude of 8.0, which was later upgraded to 8.7.
The meteorological agency initially issued an advisory for a tsunami of up to 1m (yard) along the Pacific coast of Japan and later upgraded that warning to 3m.
Yoshimasa Hayashi, chief cabinet secretary, said: “Those near the coast should evacuate immediately to higher ground or safe buildings in the areas covered by the tsunami warning from Hokkaido to Wakayama Prefecture [hundreds of kilometres to the south]. Please be aware that after the initial wave, second and third waves of tsunamis can be even higher.”
The quake struck about 250km (160 miles) away from Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost of the country’s four big islands, and was felt only slightly, according to Japan’s NHK television. The US Geological Survey said it hit at a depth of 19.3km (12 miles).
Hazardous tsunami waves – some up to 3m high – could reach areas along the coasts of Russia and Japan in the next three hours, according to USGS.
A tsunami warning also was extended to the US state of Hawaii, with the National Weather Service’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center saying a tsunami from the quake had been generated that could cause damage along the coastlines of all the Hawaiian islands.
There was no immediate information from Russia about how Kamchatka was affected.
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.
According to Japan’s tsunami advisory, which is a lower-level warning than a tsunami alert, a first wave of tsunami was expected in eastern Hokkaido around an hour and half after the quake. The government said it had set up a taskforce for information gathering and response in case of any emergency.
A University of Tokyo seismologist Shinichi Sakai told NHK that a distant earthquake could cause a tsunami that affects Japan if its epicenter is shallow.
Japan, part of the area known as the Pacific ring of fire, is one of the world’s most quake-prone countries.
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 20km and was 144km (89 miles) east of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, which has a population of 180,000.
On 4 November 1952, a magnitude 9.0 quake in Kamchatka caused damage but no reported deaths despite setting off 9.1m (30-foot) waves in Hawaii.