Widespread tsunami warnings after magnitude 8.8 quake off Russia’s east coast | BBC News
[Music] We start this hour with breaking news. We’re getting reports from the US Geological Survey of a powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake striking off Russia’s far east coast. Now, that’s triggered a Pacific Ocean tsunami advisory with the US Scientific Agency warning that hazardous tsunami waves could reach areas along the coasts of Russia and Japan in the next three hours. And in the last few minutes, we do understand those waves have hit have reached Hokkaido in Japan. What you’re seeing is people moving to higher ground in Hokkaido. Uh and we’ve also seen some pictures from Heru and Japan. The sea is certainly uh more active there as well. Now, the Japanese government expects a tsunami as high as 3 mters to arrive at large coastal areas along the Pacific o ocean and has already issued emergency and evacuation warnings. Well, according to the US Geological Survey Center, the epicenter is here near the Kamchatka region where the Russian news agency TAS reports that several people suffered minor injuries already, including at the regional airport after the quake. And warnings are not only in Japan and Russia. An evacuation order has been issued by the emergency services in Hawaii. The Department of Emergency Management ordered everyone in coastal areas to get to higher ground and head to evacuation zones indicated in the area. It’s estimated that the waves could hit Hawaii in the next four to five hours. Well, we can cross now live to both Tokyo and Los Angeles with our correspondents Shy Khalil and Peter Bose. Uh Shai Shya, if I can ask you first. Uh we do understand those waves have already reached Japan, but Japan has a very sophisticated warning system. Did you get the warning? Yes, this is what we woke up to. We woke up to um an earthquake and tsunami alert. Um I I would say first thing in the morning and then they it kept coming. It was an advisory first and then it was upgraded to a warning and then at specific areas really of where to expect those waves. As you say, Japan has a very sophisticating sophisticated warning and alert system. Um, regular updates really that people um get on their phones, but also within a couple of hours or less, the meteorological agency held a press conference reiterating evacuation orders for the large area um that is um that is affected by the warning. And just in the last uh few minutes really uh before we came on air, local media have been reporting um that waves of up to 30 meters have have now reached several areas in Hokkaido about three locations in Hokkaido in northern Japan. The evacuation warnings here have span are spanning hundreds of kilometers large swades of Japan’s east coast. So from Hokkaido in the north to Ugawara Islands uh in the south. So if you if you look at the map really it’s it’s a it’s a big big or a very long line AC um along the uh Pacific coast because of that 8.8 uh magnitude earthquake in in Russia. Uh again the reiterating the warnings um the materological agency waves could reach up to 3 to 4 meters and again the local reporting is saying look three 30 cm is what is what we’re reporting now. these waves could get higher and again it’s just a watch through the next few hours and the warnings that we you know we get on our phones and and and you see on major news websites is escape to higher safer ground time of the tsunami arrival is just an estimate because again we get um if you will we get tables and of schedules of when these um these waves are are about to hit so I think a couple of them were in the last hour and we’re expecting more this hour. The prime minister has also been speaking um in the last hour or so. He says the you know the government has already uh formed a task force working to access more information um on the current situation alert um and also said that we’ll alert more people of evacuation if necessary. Um and then and of course they’ll put uh just safety and and and making sure that lives are safe um as their priority. and Shima. Um we’re just getting news that the Philippine agency has also released a tsunami advisory. Waves of um around a meter expected to arrive uh afternoon time in the Philippines. Uh just give us a sense of the geography of the region and why uh you know earthquake with an epicenter all the way in Russia can be so damaging for this region. Well, this earthquake is huge. It’s 8.8, 8 but also it’s quite shallow and so the effect of that will push through in the Pacific areas that are in the v vicinity of of the epicenter as you say it it it may be in Russia and the epicenter may be far away but the the reverberations of that would affect areas like the Philippines like Japan like Hawaii um we’ve also heard but we we we’ve also heard that you know portions of Alaska could also be affected it it is just the the location both the location of it and the strength of that earthquake that are sending all these literal waves um on all these coasts. So, I’m not surprised that the Philippines is now getting a tsunami alert. It Japan is really used to these uh to these alerts and these warnings because of the location and because where they’re you know where they’re affected and it’s not just we’re very used to earthquakes but it’s not just earthquakes that occur in Japan or in the areas around it as you say it it also gets affected. these areas get affected when as an earthquake as as strong as this and I must say as rare as this hits the um the coast of Russia as well. Okay, Shima, we’ll leave it there with you for now. Thank you very much for that update. Uh you mentioned Hawaii. Uh we do understand that the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management said on X uh take action destructive tsunami waves expected. Let’s bring in Peter BS in Los Angeles. Peter, I mean, Hawaii obviously a much smaller island with far less resources. Uh what uh orders have been given there and what’s likely to happen? Well, for the past hour, warning sirens have been heard right across Hawaii. It is all of the Hawaiian islands that could potentially be hit by this tsunami. And so the warning now, right now, is for people to get to higher ground, to take urgent action to protect life and property. So this is the highest level of warning that is facing Hawaii right now. And as we’ve just been hearing again, this is one of those areas that is used to these kinds of warnings. And certainly here in California, it’s a little rarer, but we are used to earthquakes here and the potential repercussions of quakes that happen here or indeed elsewhere. As far as the west coast of America is concerned, there are three levels of tsunami warning. There’s a watch, there’s an advisory, and there’s the warning itself. Now in the last hour the alert for the west coast of the US so that’s Oregon, Washington, Alaska especially but California as well has been raised from a watch to an advisory. An advisory means that there are dangerous currents that there are potentially dangerous waves on the way and that people need to be thinking about that and thinking about what they may have to do in the coming hours. And we’re talking of maybe 5 or 6 hours before those waves eventually hit California. The situation in Alaska, parts of Alaska is more serious. The warning there is to especially those people in in coastal areas to to get to higher ground to protect life and also to protect if they can property. Yeah. Presumably they will be doing the same thing that we are seeing on our screens right now. That this is Hokkaido. That’s people moving up to higher ground there after those tsunami warnings in Japan. Also, tsunami warnings uh over in uh Hawaii and Alaska. And Peter, um as far as the warning system goes, I mean uh Donald Trump has actually reduced a lot of the funding towards uh the response uh in the federal government. I mean, is that likely to impact anything? I think that remains to be seen. I I I think we need to see how this situation unfolds over the next four or five six hours and and and a warning that a tsunami in its first wave isn’t necessarily the most serious wave. So, we really are going to be watching this for for quite a number of hours ahead. But I think to make any judgment as to whether any changes by the federal government are going to affect the response to this, it’s probably just too early to do that. But again, as I say, this is a state indeed the west coast of America is used to occasionally hearing these tsunami warnings which are generally triggered automatically when an earthquake happens at a certain magnitude. They don’t always materialize, but the warning is there. And in terms of what people do, well, I know that right across the the region of the west coast of America, if you if you go to the coast, you often see the tsunami, the physical tsunami warning signs as to what to do if there is a tsunami. And again, the message is quite simple. It is get to higher ground, get further inland if you can.
Japan and the US have issued tsunami warnings after a powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Russia on Wednesday.
Official evacuation orders have been issued to people on the Pacific coast of Japan and in Hawaii.
The first tsunami waves, at 30cm high, arrived at the northern coast of Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture before 10.40 local time (02.40 BST), Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported. Waves at 40cm high have been observed in Tokachi, in Hokkaido.
US authorities have issued tsunami warnings for Hawaii and Alaska. Hawaii warns it could face “destructive” 3-meter high waves.
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