Japanese woman evacuating amid tsunami warning dies after car falls off road
The 58-year-old was driving when her small car veered and fell about 20m from a national highway in Kumano, Mie Prefecture.
The police believe she was trying to move to higher ground when she steered the car in the wrong direction, Yomiuri Shimbun reported. After the tsunami warning on Wednesday, she reportedly told her family over a text message that she would move her car to higher ground.
Authorities in Japan issued evacuation advisories to over two million residents along the eastern seaboard as the powerful earthquake brought back memories of the disastrous 2011 tsunami that hit Japan.
The Russian earthquake triggered a tsunami, with high waves reaching parts of Russia, Japan, Hawaii and the US West Coast. About a dozen nations across the Pacific – from China to Chile – issued tsunami warnings and evacuation orders in the aftermath of one of the most powerful recorded earthquakes.
Russia's Oceanology Institute said tsunami waves of less than 6m were recorded near populated areas of the peninsula.
About 10 others suffered injuries, mostly in Hokkaido, while heading to shelter following the tsunami alert, Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said Thursday.
Japan's Meteorological Agency on Thursday lifted the tsunami advisory for coastal areas between Tokyo Bay and Okinawa, but announced that the measures would remain in place for areas between Hokkaido and Chiba. The highest tsunami wave observed in Japan was a 1.3m at a port in Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, according to reports.
Millions of people, who were asked to evacuate to higher grounds in Japan, Hawaii, Russia and the western coast of US, began returning to their homes late on Wednesday after tsunami warnings were dropped for most regions.
Cars jammed streets and highways in Honolulu, with traffic at a standstill even far from the sea.'We've got water, we got some snacks ... we're going to stay elevated,' said Jimmy Markowski, whose family from Hot Springs, Arkansas, fled their Waikiki beach resort before evacuation orders were lifted. 'This is our first tsunami warning ever. So this is all new to us.'
US secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the worst had passed. Later Wednesday, tsunami advisories for Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon and Washington state were canceled, but remained for parts of northern California, where authorities warned to stay away from beaches and advised that dangerous currents should be expected through Thursday morning.
While most of South American countries on the eastern coast dropped the warnings, Chile kept alerts at the highest level for most of its lengthy Pacific coast.
Alvaro Elizalde, the interior minister of Chile, said late Wednesday that evacuation orders remain in place in areas with remaining alerts and classes will continue cancelled on Thursday. He said that waves reached a height of 1.1m in some places, and in one location reached 2.5m.
In Colombia, officials have ordered the complete closure and evacuation of beaches and low-tide areas along the country's Pacific coast.
Emergency management officials in New Zealand said the country was hit by strong currents and wave surges as tsunami activity reached the shores.
An alert broadcast to every cell phone said the threat was likely to remain in place until Thursday afternoon. Evacuations haven't been ordered but people throughout the South Pacific island nation are warned to stay out of the water and away from beaches, shorelines, harbors, rivers and estuaries.
New Zealand is about 9,600km from the quake's epicentre and officials have warned that the first tsunami waves might not be the largest to arrive and people should treat the threat as real until the alert is canceled.
Wednesday's earthquake, which was followed by multiple aftershocks as strong as of 6.9 magnitude, occurred along the Pacific Ring of Fire, the ring of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where more than 80 per cent of the world's largest quakes occur.
While not all earthquakes lead to tsunamis, this one generated a series of them spreading outward from the epicentre off the coast of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. Following the quake, Russia 's Klyuchevskoy volcano erupted, with 'descent of burning hot lava' flowing down the slopes of one of the world's highest active volcanoes.
Klyuchevskoy, which has erupted several times over recent years, is located approximately 450km north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital.
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Some 145 firefighters, 44 fire engines, ten firefighting planes and seven helicopters were deployed on site as residents of the town of Kryoneri, 12.5miles northeast of Athens, received three SMS warnings to evacuate on July 26.
