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Japan’s Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning for wide areas along the Pacific coast on Wednesday morning after a powerful earthquake off the eastern coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
The warning, issued at 9:40 a.m. local time, raises the earlier advisory to a full alert, with waves up to 3 meters expected.
The warning covers coastal regions from Hokkaido to Wakayama Prefecture, including areas such as Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Chiba, Ibaraki, Shizuoka, and parts of the Izu islands.
Authorities urged residents in the affected regions to evacuate immediately to high ground or upper floors of sturdy buildings if elevated terrain is not nearby.
The Meteorological Agency emphasised that tsunami waves may exceed predicted heights, surge inland, and arrive in multiple waves with increasing intensity.
A 8.8-magnitude earthquake jolted the far offshore area east of the Kamchatka Peninsula at 7:24 a.m. Wednesday (Beijing Time), according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).
The epicenter was monitored at 52.40 degrees north latitude and 160.20 degrees east longitude. The quake struck at a depth of 10 km, said the CENC.
Prakash Kumar Pandey