Pacific countries await tsunami
Hawaii and other parts of the Pacific were braced for a destructive tsunami today caused by the massive Japanese earthquake.
Tsunami sirens were sounded and coastal areas were evacuated in Hawaii, where the first waves were expected to hit about 3am (1pm Irish Time) today.
A relatively minor 4.5-magnitude earthquake hit Hawaii as it prepared for the tsunami but there were no reports of injuries and experts said it was unlikely to be related to the Japanese quake.
Meanwhile the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre widened its alert beyond East Asia to include Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, the entire US western coast, Mexico and Central and South America and the rest of the Pacific Ocean.
Chip McCreary, the centre’s director, said tsunami waves have the potential to swamp coastal areas of all Hawaii’s islands.
“What these waves look like is an elevation of sea level, where the sea level will rise above its normal level and stay high for 10 or 15 minutes before it starts to recede,” he said.
“As a result of this, in a tsunami wave, that water can flood the coast line and be a hazard to people and buildings on the coast.”
The warnings cover an area stretching the entire western coast of the United States and Canada from the Mexican border to Chignik Bay in Alaska. In Alaska, a dozen small communities along the Aleutian Island chain were on alert.
“Everyone in that area knows, when you feel it, move – don’t wait for a siren,” said John Madden, director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The largest affected town is Unalaska, population about 4,000.
Residents in coastal areas across the Pacific from Hawaii to Guam were ordered to evacuate to shelters and higher ground.
In Hawaii’s tourist district of Waikiki, visitors were being moved to higher floors of their hotels. Meanwhile, residents were waiting in long queues stocking up on petrol, bottled water, canned food and generators.
“We’re preparing for the worst and we’re praying for the best,” said a spokesman for the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management.
“Tsunami waves, because of their long length, they wrap around our islands very efficiently,” he said.
Readings have come in from deep ocean gauges deployed since the 2004 tsunami in Banda Acha in Japan and around Wake Island.
The warning was issued at 9.31 pm local time (7.31am Irish Time). Sirens were sounded about 30 minutes later in Honolulu alerting people in coastal areas to evacuate. About 70% of Hawaii’s 1.4 million population resides in Honolulu, and as many as 100,000 tourists are in the city on any given day.
In the Philippines, officials ordered an evacuation of coastal communities along the country’s eastern seaboard in expectation of a tsunami..
Disaster management officials in Albay province south-east of Manila said they ordered residents to move to designated evacuation sites that are at least 15 feet above sea level.
In Guam, authorities advised people to evacuate low areas of the US territory and seek ground higher than 50 feet above sea level and 100 feet inland.
The Northern Mariana Islands, another US territory, was also under the warning, and the Hyatt Regency in Saipan has moved guests to three highest floors of the seven-story hotel.
Australia was not in danger because it was protected by island nations to the north, including Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, that would largely absorb any wave activity, the country’s National Meteorological and Oceanographic Centre said.
