Tsunami roars across Pacific after Chile quake

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A TSUNAMI roared across the vast Pacific Ocean today after a massive killer quake in Chile, with dozens of nations on alert for destructive waves. The ominous sound of evacuation sirens blared in Hawaii and French Polynesia as a tsunami raced around the Pacific’s “Ring of Fire” after the 8.8-magnitude quake in Chile, which left at least 147 people dead.

About 50 countries and territories along an arc stretching from New Zealand to Japan were braced for immensely powerful waves, five years after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster that killed more than 220,000 people.

Twelve hours after the quake, a tsunami had crashed into the Chilean coast and struck French Polynesia and the Chatham Islands of New Zealand, where officials warned bigger waves would follow.

“We could be looking at an all-day event,” US National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Lau said, as officials warned that the US and Canadian west coasts could also be hit.

“It will stop once it hits the land masses on the other side of the Pacific, in Asia. The wave is spread out across the entire body of water in the Pacific.”

Authorities in the US state of Hawaii, where tsunami sirens wailed for the first time in 16 years, urged residents to take the threat seriously.

“If you live anywhere in the evacuation zone, you have to evacuate,” Oahu Emergency Management Department John Cummings said. “We’re going to treat this as a destructive-type tsunami.”

US President Barack Obama warned that the US western seaboard may see dangerous waves and currents throughout the day.

“In the hours ahead, we’ll continue to take every step possible to prepare our shores and protect our citizens,” he said.

One tsunami measuring nearly 2.5 metres slammed into Talcahuano, one of about 11 coastal towns in Chile hit by the wave, according to the Pacific centre. There was no immediate word of casualties.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet announced a partial evacuation of Easter Island, but the island of about 4000 people, known for its hundreds of monolithic stone statues, received a relatively small onrush of water.

The pan-Pacific tsunami warning applied also to Central America, and authorities as far afield as Russia’s Sakhalin island were monitoring the potential for tidal trouble.

“Mid-ocean, the wave is travelling at around the speed of a jet plane,” Roger Bilham, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado, said.

He calculated that in mid-ocean, the mass of water would be hurtling toward Hawaii at 200 metres a second, or 720 kilometres an hour.

“The amplitude of the wave is small when it’s mid-ocean, but it may rise to five to 10 metres when it reaches Japan or the Philippines,” he said.

A tsunami of up to four metres struck the island paradise of French Polynesia but there were no casualties or major damage reported, after traffic in areas close to the sea was suspended.

Waves rammed into the Gambier archipelago and the Marquesas Islands, where a two-metre wall of water damaged some boats, officials said. Some flights were diverted and several thousand people in Tahiti were moved to higher ground.

Tsunamis generally come in several waves of which the first may not be the highest.

A half-metre tsunami struck New Zealand’s eastern Chatham Islands, with officials warning that the country’s entire east coast was at risk from impending waves of up to three metres.

“It is expected that the greatest wave heights will occur between six and 12 hours after the initial arrivals,” the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management said.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre warned of the “possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding” along the coast between Sydney and Brisbane.

Authorities in Indonesia and Taiwan said they were monitoring, while Philippine officials started planning for possible evacuations.

Jake Phillips, a forecaster with Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, played down the risk of major flooding in heavily populated coastal areas.

“But there is a marine threat and that would include anyone out boating or rock fishermen,” he said.

Memories are still raw in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga of a terrifying tsunami that trashed entire villages in September, leaving 184 people dead.

The Hawaii operation manages a network of early-warning electronic buoys strung across the Pacific Ocean. But the September waves came so suddenly that there was little time to flee to higher ground.

A week later, a rapid succession of quakes off Vanuatu created panic across the South Pacific. The region is in the middle of the “Ring of Fire”, a belt of seismic fury responsible for most of the world’s tremors and volcanoes.

Australia can expect a tsunami from about 8:15 am today officials said. Seismic waves could reach the east coast of Japan around noon, the country’s meteorological agency said.