Tsunami evacuations ordered in South America, but the worst risk seems to be passing us after a huge earthquake

Honolulu – The fears of a devastating tsunami across the Pacific disappeared on Wednesday after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded a little populated Russian peninsula, but the communities along the Côte du Pacifique in South America have evacuations and closed beaches.

Warnings in the early hours after the 8.8 magnitude earthquake sent people fleeing from rooftops to Japan and forced tourists to leave hotels by the sea in Hawaii, scorking island traffic. A death was reported in Japan and Russia, several people were injured while they rushed into the buildings, including a patient in the hospital that jumped from a window.

Millions of people were invited to move away from the shore or to seek high terrain because they were potentially on the way to tsunami waves, which struck the seaside areas of Japan, Hawaii and the American West Coast but did not seem to cause major damage.

Disastrous warnings after the massive earthquake early Wednesday off the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia aroused memories of catastrophic damage caused by tsunamis this century.

In Japan, people flocked to evacuation centers, parks at the top of a hill and roofs in the cities of the Pacific coast with new memories of the earthquake and the 2011 tsunami which caused a nuclear disaster.

Cars blocked the streets and highways in Honolulu, with traffic at a stop, even far from the sea.

“We have water, we have snacks … We are going to remain raised,” said Jimmy Markowski, whose Hot Springs family, Arkansas, fled their Waikiki seaside resort before the evacuation orders are lifted. “This is our first warning from Tsunami. So all this is new to us. ”

The American Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that the worst had passed. Later Wednesday, Tsunamis opinions for Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon and Washington State were canceled but remained for some parts of northern California, where the authorities warned to stay far from the beaches and indicated that dangerous currents should be expected until Thursday morning.

Experts say that it is difficult to know when to abandon opinions, which indicates the potential of strong currents, dangerous waves and floods.

“It’s a bit difficult to plan because it is such an impactful event and created so many of these waves that pass,” said Dave Snider, Tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska.

The earthquake has been the strongest recorded since the earthquake of 9.1 off Japan in 2011 caused a massive tsunami and collapses in a nuclear power plant. Japan nuclear power plants have noted any anomaly this time.

Wednesday’s earthquake occurred along the “Ring of Fire”, a series of seismic defects around the Pacific Ocean. He was centered abroad, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital of Kamchatka. Several replicas as strong as 6.9 followed.

The Institute of Russian Oceanology said that waves of tsunami under 6 meters (20 feet) have been recorded near the populated areas of the peninsula.

The lava flowed Wednesday from the largest volcano in the northern hemisphere in a remote region of Kamchatka, said the geophysical service of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In South America, three of the four countries with Pacific ribs have raised their tsunami warnings.

Authorities in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have announced that tsunami alerts had been deleted. In Chile, the country with the largest Pacific coast in South America, the government has kept the alert along the most part of the coast, but raised it in certain regions where the authorities said there was no more risk.

The Minister of the Interior of Chile, Álvaro Elizalde, said on Wednesday evening that the evacuation orders remain in force in the areas with alerts in place, and that schools will be closed again on Thursday.

He said that a wave in a place was 8.2 feet (2.5 meters), while in other areas, they reached a height of 3.6 feet (1.1 meters).

Chile is very vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.

The authorities in Hawaii have downgraded the state to an opinion of tsunami, and the evacuation orders on the big island and Oahu, the most populous island, were lifted.

“When you go home, always stay out of the beach and stay outside the water,” said James Barros, administrator of the Hawaii emergency management agency.

In northern California, 3.6 -foot (1.1 meter) tsunami waves were recorded at Crescent City, which has a history of tsunami disasters.

Even waves only several feet high could present a significant risk.

“It is perhaps only 3 feet, but it is a wall of water which measures 3 feet and extends over hundreds of kilometers. Three feet of water can easily flood inside the land and flood a few houses inside the land of the beach,” said Diego Melgar, director of the Center de Sciences du Tremblment de Terre from the Cascadia region at the University of Oregon.

In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the earthquake damaged an unoccupied kindergarten.

A video published by a Russian media has shown that doctors in a cancer clinic on Kamchatka held a patient and tightening medical equipment while the earthquake was shaking an operating room.

Authorities on the low-populated Kuril Islands reported that several waves flooded the fishing port in Severo-Kurilsk, the main city of the islands and reduced power supplies to the region. The mayor of the port said that no major damage had been recorded.

Japan has reported a death and other people have been injured or suffered from heat -related diseases during its tsunami evacuations.

A woman in the fifties died after falling from a cliff road while going to an evacuation center in the prefecture of MIE in central Japan, said on Thursday the chief secretary of the Cabinet Yoshimasa Hayashi. 10 other people, most of whom were in Hokkaido, were injured while they were heading to take refuge.

In addition, 11 others were taken to hospital after developing symptoms of heat disease while taking refuge in hot weather, temperatures reaching around 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in certain places in the country.

A 2 -foot tsunami (60 centimeters) was recorded in the city of Hamanaka in Hokkaido and the port of Kuji in Iwate, according to the Japanese meteorological agency.

In Iwaki, a city in the prefecture of Fukushima, which was the epicenter of the Tsunami and the 2011 earthquake, the residents gathered in a hills park after a community siren sounded and the brilliant doors were closed.

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant workers, seriously damaged in 2011, were sheltered on higher ground while monitoring the operations remotely, the operator said.

A few hours later, Japan demoted its Tsunami alert but left an opinion in place along the Pacific coast.

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The journalists of Associated Press from all over the world contributed to this report.

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This story was updated to correct that the extent of the Quake in Japan was 9.1, not 9.0.