Tsunami danger has Chile on alert as Pacific warnings lifted

Millions have returned home after tsunami warnings were lifted across the Pacific rim, but several regions in Chile remain on alert.

Tsunami warnings have been lifted across the Pacific rim, allowing millions of temporary evacuees to return home.

After one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded rattled Russia’s sparsely populated Far East, more than a dozen nations — from Japan to the United States to Ecuador -— warned citizens to stay away from coastal regions.

Storm surges of up to four metres were predicted for some parts of the Pacific, after the 8.8 quake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula.

The tsunamis caused widespread disruption. Peru closed 65 of its 121 Pacific ports and authorities on Maui cancelled flights to and from the Hawaiian island.

But fears of a catastrophe were not realised, with country after country lifting or downgrading warnings and telling coastal residents they could return.

In Japan, almost two million people had been ordered to higher ground, before the warnings were downgraded or rescinded.

The Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan — destroyed by a huge quake and tsunami in 2011 — was temporarily evacuated.

The only reported fatality was a woman killed while driving her car off a cliff in Japan as she tried to escape, local media reported.

In Chile, authorities conducted what the Interior Ministry said was “perhaps the most massive evacuation ever carried out in our country” — with 1.4 million people ordered to high ground.

Chilean authorities reported no damage or victims and registered waves of just 60 centimetres on the country’s north coast.

In the Galapagos Islands, where waves of up to three metres were expected, there was relief as the Ecuadoran navy’s oceanographic institute said the danger had passed.

Locals reported the sea level falling and then rising suddenly, a phenomenon which is commonly seen with the arrival of a tsunami.

But only a surge of just over a meter was reported, causing no damage.

Originally published as Tsunami danger has Chile on alert as Pacific warnings lifted