Tsunami warnings are still in place a day after a huge earthquake rocked the Pacific.
The 8.8 magnitude quake, one of the strongest ever recorded, struck off the coast of Russia’s far east in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The first tsunami waves landed on Russia’s Kuril Islands on the Kamchatka peninsula, which sits on the ‘Ring of Fire,’ an area of the Pacific with high seismic activity.
Waves up to five metres in height were recorded off the Russian coast yesterday, and the earthquake also triggered an eruption of the Klyuchevskoy volcano, the largest in Eurasia.
Several Pacific countries issued tsunami alerts in response to the quake, with coastal areas evacuated in preparation.
The potentially serious threat of tsunami waves eased throughout the day on Wednesday, with several countries cancelling their alerts in the afternoon.
But part of South America still has alerts in place this morning, amid fears that rebounding tsunami waves could still cause major damage.
Where are tsunami warnings still in place today?
Chile is now the only South American country that still has tsunami warnings on Thursday – July 31.
While others lifted their restrictions earlier this morning, most of Chile’s Pacific coast is still under an alert.
Chilean president Gabriel Boric warned: ‘Remember that the first wave is usually not the strongest.’
Some areas of its coastline have had restrictions lifted, but the country’s interior minister, Alvaro Elizalde, said some evacuation orders are still in place, and schools will be closed again today.
Tsunami waves reached a peak of 2.5metres off the coast of Chile, with more waves of 1.1metres recorded.
Away from South America, authorities in New Zealand renewed an advisory late in the afternoon local time that urged people to stay out of the water and off beaches.
Where have warnings lifted?
These countries and regions have lifted their tsunami warnings:
- Easter Island
- Colombia
- Peru
- Ecuador
- Russia
- Hawaii
- Japan
- US coast
- Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
What caused the earthquake off Russia?
Wednesday’s quake occurred along the ‘Ring of Fire’, a series of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean.
This part of the globe features several tectonic plates converging, and more than 80% of the world’s major earthquakes happen here.
Its epicenter was about 75miles offshore from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka’s regional capital.
Multiple aftershocks as strong as 6.9 magnitude followed, gradually weakening as the day went on.
Tsunamis are triggered by underwater earthquakes, which cause the seafloor to rise and drop, pushing huge volumes of sea water into waves.
Was there much damage from the earthquake and tsunamis?
Several people have been injured during the earthquake, but none seriously.
One woman in Japan died while trying to evacuate to higher ground.
Her car veered off the road and fell off a cliff as she was trying to leave a coastal area yesterday in Kumano city of Mie Prefecture. She died of severe head injuries.
Despite its huge power, the earthquake has caused only limited damage on the sparsely populated Kamchatka peninsula.
In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the quake damaged a local kindergarten which was empty as the building was being renovated.
Several waves flooded the fishing port of Severo-Kurilsk, the main city on the Russian Kuril Islands, and cut power supplies to the area, but the port’s mayor said no major damage was reported.
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