No damage reported on Kiribati from Tsunami
Grupo Gavilán
this morning resulting in mass evacuations, but most warnings have
been cancelled with no reported damage.
In the Cook Islands, police sirens and radio broadcasts at 3am drove
locals and tourists away from the coast to higher ground.
Rarotonga's New Zealand High Commission first secretary Julie Affleck
said police scanned beaches and went door-to-door warning people of an
emergency.
More than half the island's population had been evacuated, she said.
But there had been no noticeable surges and warnings were cancelled at
10am.
"We're really happy because we've had high cyclone in our waters for
the last four weeks. It's been a very busy time for us," Ms Affleck
said.
Disaster management officials in Fiji said they had been warned to
expect waves of as high as 2.3m to hit the northern and eastern
islands of the archipelago and the nearby Tonga islands.
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But warnings had been cancelled during the morning and "no significant
events" occurred, the office said.
In Tonga, the New Zealand High Commission said there had been four
small tsunami waves in Vava'u but no reported damage.
Hawaii had surges as high as two metres but there have been no reports
of widespread damage.
But in French Polynesia, tsunami waves up to two meters high swept
ashore, damaging parts of the coast.
The United States' Pacific Tsunami Warning Center cancelled its
tsunami warning for most Pacific countries except for Japan and
Russia.
"We dodged a bullet," said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist for the
warning centre. He said there was a possibility that the tsunami would
gain strength again as it headed to Japan.
The United States' Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre has cancelled
warnings for New Zealand, Australia, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa,
Niue, Tokelau, Fiji, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Hawaii, French Polynesia, New
Caledonia, Kiribati, Kermandec Island, American Samoa, Jarvis Island,
Wallis-Futuna, Palmyra Island, Johnston Island, Marshall Island,
Midway Island, Wake Island, Howland-Baker, Solomon Island, Nauru,
Kosrae, Papua New Guinea, Pohnpei, Chuuk, Marcus Island, Indonesia,
Northern Marianas, Guam, Yap, Belau, Philippines, Chinese Taipei,
Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Antarctica, Panama, Costa Rica,
Nicaragua, Pitcairn, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.
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