Tsunami warnings remain in place for South America after volcano eruption and 8.8 earthquake off Russian coast: Live updates

After a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake rattled off the coast of Russia on Tuesday, officials in Hawaii warned residents a tsunami with potentially dangerous levels of inundation might be on the way.

When the National Weather Service updated Hawaii’s tsunami watch to a tsunami warning local officials called for evacuations of at-risk costal communities.

If you were to believe some posts on social media, the billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey — who lives in Maui part-time — was accused of callously refusing to let evacuees use her private road to shorten their travel time.

Millions of temporary evacuees returned home on Wednesday night after most of the tsunami warnings were lifted across the Pacific.

The 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck the sparsely populated Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia during the early hours of Wednesday, prompting tsunami warnings and evacuations across regions from the US to Japan.

Tsunami warnings rippled across the Pacific, triggering emergency responses and widespread disruption. In Peru, authorities shuttered 65 of the country’s 121 Pacific ports as a precaution, while flights to and from Hawaii’s Maui island were cancelled.

Japan, haunted by memories of the 2011 disaster, ordered nearly two million people to evacuate to higher ground.

By Wednesday evening, however, countries across the region began lifting or scaling back alerts, allowing coastal communities to return.

Professor Ilan Kelman from UCL’s department of Risk and Disaster Reduction has said the tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean mean we should have a greater awareness in the UK for these types of disasters.

“Tsunamis have happened around the UK in the past and we travel,” he says. “Tragically in the 2004 [Boxing Day] tsunami, 149 people affiliated with the UK died.

“Be aware that anywhere near water, tsunamis can happen. Tsunamis are relevant to the UK. Tsunamis are relevant to the British. We have coastlines and we travel. So please ensure that when you travel, and anyone living near the shore knows what to do when a tsunami may strike their location.”

The massive 8.8 earthquake reportedly caused limited damage in the sparsely populated Russian peninsula. In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the quake damaged a local kindergarten that was unoccupied.

A video released by a Russian media outlet showed a team of doctors at a cancer clinic on Kamchatka holding a patient and clutching medical equipment as the quake rocked an operating room.

Authorities on the sparsely populated Kuril Islands reported several waves flooded the fishing port of Severo-Kurilsk, the main city on the islands, and cut power supplies to the area. The port’s mayor said no major damage was reported.

The US National Tsunami Warning Centre, in its latest update, said a tsunami advisory continues for a reduced area in the Pacific region.

Chile, a place highly vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis, raised its warning to the highest level yesterday for most of its lengthy Pacific coast and began evacuating hundreds of people.

“Remember that the first wave is usually not the strongest,” Chilean president Gabriel Boric warned on social media.

Colombian officials ordered the complete closure and evacuation of beaches and low-tide areas while maritime traffic was being restricted. Ecuador canceled classes at schools in the Galapagos Islands as well as communities along the coast.

Coastlines of New Zealand — about 9,600km from the quake’s epicenter — were experiencing strong currents and wave surges. There were no evacuations, but people throughout the South Pacific island nation were warned to stay out of the water and away from beaches, shorelines and harbours.

A team of medics was in the middle of surgery in the Far Eastern Russian city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky when Wednesday’s very powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake shook their equipment and the floor beneath them.

The medics used their hands to try to steady both the patient and their equipment, CCTV footage released by the Kamchatka region’s Health Ministry showed.

“Despite the danger, the doctors remained calm and stayed with the patient until the very end,” Oleg Melnikov, the minister, wrote on Telegram. He gave no details of the surgery but added that the patient was currently out of danger.