Tsunami warnings have been issued in regions across the Pacific, including Hawaii, Alaska, Russia and Japan, following a magnitude 8.8 "megaquake" — the joint-sixth largest ever recorded — that hit off Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula at 11:25 a.m. local time (18:25 p.m. EST) on Wednesday morning (July 30), according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Tsunami waves could reach higher than 10 feet (3 meters) above tide level along the coasts of Hawaii, Ecuador and Russia, according to a warning issued by the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center at 11:07 p.m. EST on July 29. The first waves reached Hawaii, with a 4 foot (1.2 m) wall of water recorded by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) off the coast of Oahu, the BBC reports.
