8.9 Japanese Quake Spawns Massive Tsunami (video)

Japanese residents watch as waves surge through their neighborhood.

Hawaii is experiencing the first affects of a massive Tsunami, with waves as high as 6 feet as a result of an 8.9 earthquake of the coast of Japan Friday afternoon, local time.

Reports say the worst is yet to come, as residents scramble to get away from coastal areas ahead of what could be a wall of water as high as 30 feet. As many as twenty other Pacific Rim countries, including the west coast of the U.S. could also be affected.

Bloomberg News reports:

Chile, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador put communities and ports on their Pacific coasts on tsunami alerts after Japan was hit by its strongest earthquake in at least a century.

Coastal areas of Easter Island will be evacuated today, Chile’s state television station TVN reported. Colombia’s biggest port, Buenaventura, is on alert after the 8.9-magnitude quake in Japan triggered a warning from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Luz Amanda Pulido, head of the country’s disaster prevention agency, told radio station RCN. Peru and Ecuador’s Pacific coast are also on alert, authorities in both countries said.

Meanwhile, back in Japan residents are being evacuated from neighborhoods surrounding a nuclear power plant over fears of a coolant failure. Reuters reports:

A cooling system for a nuclear reactor was not working after a powerful earthquake in Japan, prompting the government to declare an emergency situation as a precaution although it said there was no radioactive leakage at present.

Residents that live within a 3 km radius of Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have been told to evacuate, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.

 The following comes via The Guardian:

Related articles

• Japan earthquake the seventh most powerful ever: USGS (telegraph.co.uk)
• CNN: Tsunami warnings issued for Hawaii, U.S.West Coast and 19 other countries after major quake and tsunami off Japan. (economy4abc.blogspot.com)
• The world's strongest earthquakes and tsunamis (boston.com)