The sixth-strongest earthquake ever recorded has triggered waves several feet high hurtling towards coastal areas worldwide.
Countries in and around the Pacific Ocean have been placed on varying degrees of alerts for anticipated tsunamis.
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While it’s still too early to fully assess how damaging the natural disaster could be, authorities have generally advised residents in at-risk areas to seek higher ground and avoid coastlines.
Here are the countries that have been hit so far by tsunamis since the historic quake.
Russia
In Russia, where the quake originated on Wednesday around 8:25 a.m. local time (4:25 p.m. ET, Tuesday), tsunami waves of 10-13 ft (3-4 m) hit the port town of Severo-Kurilsk in the far east coast. The town of about 2,000 people was evacuated.
Footage circulating online showed buildings inundated as the waves reached the coast. According to state-run news agency TASS, the mayor said three waves hit the town, with the last being the most powerful. Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said on Telegram that, besides the port town, an Alaid fish processing plant was also “partially flooded.”
Japan
On Wednesday at 9:40 a.m. local time (8:40 p.m. ET, Tuesday), the Japan Meteorological Agency issued warnings of tsunamis as high as 3 m in the country’s Pacific coast. The agency has, as of 5 p.m. local time, observed many tsunamis along the nation’s east coast, including a wave in Kuji Port shortly before 2 p.m. (1 a.m. ET) that rose as high as 1.3 m.
Earlier, 30-cm waves struck several areas of the northern island of Hokkaido. Video shared by Reuters showed high waves reaching the island’s coastline.
There has so far been no reports of tsunami-related damages, though public broadcaster NHK reported that Tokyo authorities continue to advise people to avoid the sea. Some of the beaches in the country have also been evacuated.
JMA official Kiyomoto Masashi said, according to NHK, that a single tsunami can have a very long cycle of about one hour and tsunamis can still be observable over longer periods of time after the quake that caused them.
U.S.
Alaska
According to the National Weather Service, tsunami waves have been detected in the Pacific-facing side of the Alaska peninsula. Waves less than a foot high were detected in the islands of Amchitka and Adak, and are also picking up in the coastal city of Saint Paul.
California
California reported its first tsunami waves just after 1 a.m. PT (4 a.m. ET). Water levels in Crescent City, which is in Northern California near Oregon, went up to 1.5 ft, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed.
NWS Bay Area reported that tsunami waves arrived in San Francisco around the same time, while NWS Los Angeles said that the tsunami was “making its way down the coast,” though it previously noted for Southern California residents that “widespread inundation is not expected.”
Guam
Waves up to a foot have been observed in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific, according to the island’s civil defense office. More similarly tall waves are expected, though they are gradually expected to ebb in the next hours.
Hawaii
The archipelagic state of Hawaii began to be hit by waves around 7:30 p.m. HST (1:30 a.m. ET), according to NOAA data, which showed that waves as high as 5.7 ft (1.74 m) were detected in Kahului, Maui, coming in 34-minute intervals.
Gov. Josh Green said in a news conference Tuesday evening that “so far we have not seen a wave of consequence, which is a great relief to us.”
Data from the Midway Atoll sitting between Japan and Hawaii saw waves as high as 1.8 m., and Green said that waves that could hit Hawaii could be bigger or smaller than that.
“We expect to be about two to three hours at least until we can call ‘all clear,’” Green said around 8:30 p.m. (2:30 a.m. ET). “So far though, at the moment, so good.”