South America on tsunami alert as Russia, Japan downgrade warnings

The threat of tsunamis has now spread to South America, while warnings were downgraded in Russia, Japan, and the US.

The threat of tsunamis has spread to South America, while warnings were downgraded in Russia, Japan, and the US.

Five prisons were being evacuated in Chile early Thursday AEST with inmates transferred to other facilities.

In Peru, the Navy recommended suspending port and fishing activities and urged people to stay away from the ocean.

In the Galapagos Islands, national parks were closed, schools were shuttered, loudspeakers blared warnings and tourists were spirited off sightseeing boats and onto the safety of land.

It comes after panic was sparked across the Pacific after the sixth most powerful earthquake in recorded history struck off Russia’s far eastern coast.

The magnitude 8.8 quake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, rattling the earth and generating waves of up to four metres in height.

The initial quake caused limited damage and only light injuries, despite being the strongest since 2011, when 15,000 people were killed in Japan.

But tsunami warnings were issued for more than a dozen countries, with millions of residents put on high alert.

In Russia, a tsunami crashed through the port of Severo-Kurilsk submerging the local fishing plant, officials said.

Russian state television footage showed buildings and debris swept into the sea. The surge of water reached as far as the town’s World War II monument about 400 meters from the shoreline, said Mayor Alexander Ovsyannikov.

In Japan, almost two million people were told to head to higher ground, before the warnings were downgraded or rescinded.

One woman was killed as she drove her car off a cliff as she tried to escape, local media reported.

FOLLOW UPDATES BELOW:

Originally published as South America on tsunami alert as Russia, Japan downgrade warnings