Picture source: wsspg.org

An 8.1 earthquake struck Northeast of Japan about 6:15 EST this morning and a tsunami warning has been issued in Japan.

A tsunami about 6 1/2 feet tall or higher could hit the Pacific coast of Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido and main island of Honshu after 9:10 p.m. (7:10 a.m. EST), the agency said.

An official from the town of Shibetsu on Hokkaido, Kiyoshi Takimoto, told public broadcater NHK that about 4,000 of the town’s 6,100 residents lived along the coast and had been told to flee to higher ground.

While writing this, I just heard on CNN that Hawaii has now been put on tsunami watch, but it will take awhile for the wave to travel across to the Hawaii shores. Also on watch is in place in Alaska and Russia. Part of Alaska has a Tsunami warning. The lowest level warning for tsunami is a tsunami advisory, followed by a tsunami watch and finally the highest level (evacuation): a tsunami warning.

More coverage: CNN (Sirius satellite subscribers: channel 132) and various sources online via Google News [keyword: tsunami (RSS)]

Did this post make you go hmm?

 Loading ...