Strong earthquake off Russia triggers Tsunami warnings across the Pacific

The magnitude 8.8 quake struck off Petropavlovsk on Russia’s remote Kamchatka peninsula, and was the largest since 2011 when one of magnitude 9.1 off Japan and a subsequent tsunami killed more than 15,000 people.

Russian authorities said a tsunami hit and flooded the port town of Severo-Kurilsk, crashing through the port area and submerging the local fishing plant.

Authorities said the population of around 2,000 people was evacuated.

The waves — which were up to four metres high in some areas — reached as far as the town’s World War II monument about 400 metres from the shoreline, according to Mayor Alexander Ovsyannikov.

Several people were injured in Russia by the quake, state media reported, but none seriously.

“The walls were shaking,” a Kamchatka resident told state media Zvezda.

“It’s good that we packed a suitcase, there was one with water and clothes near the door. We quickly grabbed it and ran out… It was very scary,” she said.

Officials from countries with a Pacific coastline in North and South America — including the United States, Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia — issued warnings to avoid threatened beaches and low-lying areas.

In Japan, nearly two million people were advised to evacuate, and many left by car or on foot to higher ground.

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

A 1.3-metre high tsunami reached a port in the northern prefecture of Iwate, Japan’s weather agency said.

In Hawaii, Governor Josh Green said flights in and out of the island of Maui had been cancelled as a precaution.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre later downgraded the alert for Hawaii to an advisory.

Earlier, tsunami sirens blared near Hawaii’s popular Waikiki surf beach, where an AFP photographer saw gridlocked traffic as Hawaiians escaped to higher ground.