Vientiane: Countries across the Pacific rim lifted tsunami warnings on Wednesday, allowing millions of temporary evacuees to return home. After one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded rattled Russia’s sparsely populated Far East, more than a dozen nations-from Japan to the United States to Ecuador-warned citizens to stay away from coastal regions.
According to Lao News Agency, storm surges of up to four meters (12 feet) were predicted for some parts of the Pacific after the 8.8 quake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula. The tsunami warnings caused widespread disruption, with Peru closing 65 of its 121 Pacific ports and authorities on Maui canceling flights to and from the Hawaiian island.
Fears of a catastrophe were not realized, with country after country lifting or downgrading warnings and telling coastal residents they could return. In Japan, almost two million people had been ordered to higher ground before the warnings were downgraded to an advisory for large stretches of its Pacific coast, with waves up to 0.7 meters still being observed on Thursday.
In Chile, authorities conducted what the Interior Ministry called “perhaps the most massive evacuation ever carried out in our country,” with 1.4 million people ordered to high ground. There were no reported damages or victims, and waves of just 60 centimeters (two feet) were registered on the country’s north coast.
In the Galapagos Islands, the Ecuadoran navy’s oceanographic institute declared the danger had passed, although locals observed the sea level falling and then rising suddenly. “Everything is calm, I’m going back to work. The restaurants are reopening and the places tourists visit are also open again,” said 38-year-old Santa Cruz resident Isabel Grijalva.
The worst damage was seen in Russia, where a tsunami crashed through the port of Severo-Kurilsk and submerged the local fishing plant. Russian state television footage showed buildings and debris swept into the sea, and the surge of water reached as far as the town’s World War II monument about 400 meters from the shoreline.
Despite the initial quake being the strongest since 2011, when 15,000 people were killed in Japan, it caused limited damage and only light injuries. Russian scientists reported that the Klyuchevskoy volcano erupted shortly after the earthquake.
Wednesday’s quake was the strongest in the Kamchatka region since 1952, and the regional seismic monitoring service warned of aftershocks of up to 7.5 magnitude. The US Geological Survey said the quake was one of the 10 strongest tremors recorded since 1900, followed by dozens of aftershocks that further shook the Russian Far East.
