Tokyo.- Japanese authorities decided this Wednesday to lower the tsunami alert level for the center and south of its Pacific coast, but maintained that warning on the northeast coast, after the 8.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast of
Kamchatka (Russia).
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) downgraded its alert to a “tsunami advisory” for the entire coastal area from Ibaraki (north of Tokyo) to Kyushu, the largest southwestern island that makes up the Japanese archipelago.
Instead, it maintained the alert for the coasts of Tohoku and Hokkaido, the closest to Kamchatka. The JMA also recommended that the population maintain caution and stay away from coastal areas while these warnings are still in effect.
Tsunami risk alerts of up to three meters in height led local authorities to issue evacuation orders that affected about 2 million people, who were urged to leave their homes and take refuge in public spaces set up for that purpose.
Due to those same alerts, rail and air traffic suffered serious disruptions throughout the day in the country, affecting for example the metropolitan area of Tokyo and surrounding areas, where a quarter of the Japanese population is concentrated, or Sendai airport (northeast), where flights were canceled and diverted.
Experts from the Japan Meteorological Agency asked people in coastal areas, riverbanks, and other risk areas to move to high ground, evacuation buildings, or other safe places, due to the risk of tsunamis continuing to occur in the coming hours.
“We expect the tsunami waves to remain high for at least a day,” said Masashi Kiyomoto of the JMA during a press conference.
The expert explained that a single tsunami can have cycles of up to an hour and that they could last “for quite some time”, and recalled that in the area of Wednesday’s earthquake there have been major earthquakes in the past, and that, according to records of tsunamis after similar earthquakes, the conditions for dangerous tsunamis can persist for more than 24 hours.
On the Japanese coast, tsunamis of different heights have been observed this Wednesday after the powerful earthquake in Kamchatka, which reached 1.3 meters in Iwate (northeast), 80 centimeters in Hokkaido (north) or 30 cm in Yokohama (south of Tokyo).
Japanese experts also recalled that today’s earthquake in Kamchatka is the strongest in that area since the one in 1952, which reached a magnitude of 9, caused the death of 2,300 people and generated a subsequent tsunami of more than 10 meters that reached Alaska and Hawaii.
Subsequent studies suggest that waves of more than 3 meters impacted parts of northeastern Japan. Flooded houses were reported along the coast, including areas of the north, center, and southwest of the Japanese archipelago.
