Taiwan roads reopened and guests at a Philippines resort reported no unusual waves after Japan’s strongest earthquake in at least a century triggered tsunami warnings across the Pacific, including the U.S. west coast.
Sirens sounded in Hawaii and low-lying areas were evacuated after the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center raised an alert following the 8.9-magnitude temblor off Japan’s northeast, the Associated Press reported. The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center extended the warning to the U.S. west seaboard.
The Philippines, Indonesia and Chile were among more than 20 countries that were told to brace for a possible tsunami after Japan’s coast was engulfed by water. At least 26 people were killed by waves as high as 7 meters (23 feet) and many more are missing, according state broadcaster NHK Television.
Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau ended its tsunami alert around 7 p.m. local time, saying there’s no imminent danger. The waves that landed on the island from 5.47 p.m. to 6.10 p.m. were between 8 centimeters and 12 centimeters high, the bureau said. The main island of Taiwan isn’t in a direct line to the epicenter of the quake.
The temblor struck at 2:46 p.m. local time 130 kilometers (81 miles) off the coast of Sendai, north of Tokyo, at a depth of 24 kilometers, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was followed by a 7.1-magnitude aftershock at 4:25 p.m., the agency said. The quake was the fifth-biggest since 1900, according to USGS data on its website.
Wave Surge
Waves traveling as fast as 800 kilometers an hour radiated from the epicenter, sparking warnings in countries lying in their path. A 9.1 magnitude temblor off North Sumatra in Indonesia in December 2004 left about 220,000 people dead or missing in 12 countries around the Indian Ocean.
In the Philippines, residents living in coastal areas in 19 provinces were advised to seek higher ground. Waves were expected to hit Philippine shores between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. local time, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said in a bulletin.
At the Misibis Bay luxury resort in the Philippines there were no signs of large waves at 6:30 p.m., according to two Bloomberg News journalists staying there. Staff had briefed guests, who remain on alert, they said.
Evacuations earlier began in the provinces of Surigao and Eastern Samar, police officials said.
Corn, Rice Harvests
The provinces put on alert include some of the nation’s biggest corn and rice producing areas such as Cagayan, Isabela and Aurora. Harvesting of the first rice crop in the world’s biggest buyer of the grain will peak between this month and May.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center also issued warnings for Indonesia, Russia, New Zealand and Australia, as well as countries down the west coast of Central and Latin America as far as Chile and Antarctica. Lack of adequate warnings after the 2004 Indonesia quake were blamed for many of the deaths.
Chile’s government said it is not ruling out evacuating Easter Island, located 3,500 kilometers (2,100 miles) off the Chilean coast, where waves generated by the quake may arrive at about 6 p.m. New York time.
A tsunami warning is in effect in Indonesia for the provinces of Papua, northern Sulawesi and Maluku, the country’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said in an e- mailed statement. Affected areas are “expected to pay attention to this warning and immediately guide their communities for evacuation,” the statement said.
The waves may reach parts of eastern Indonesia at 8:35 p.m. local time -- about 6:35 p.m. in Jakarta, the agency said in a mobile-phone text message. The tsunami may reach different areas at different times, and the first wave may not be the strongest.
BP Monitoring
BP Plc said it is “closely monitoring” its operations in Papua. “So far Tangguh LNG is operating as normal, but we are closely monitoring the situation and readying our resources for any eventuality,” William Lin, president of BP Asia Pacific Exploration & Production, said in an e-mailed statement.
Taiwan’s eastern counties of Taitung, Yilan, Hualien and north eastern Keelung city had earlier shut schools and businesses after the Central Weather Bureau issued a tsunami alert, the Central Personnel Administration said in statements on its website.
Waves may reach Hawaii by 12:59 p.m. GMT, the Pacific center said.
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