Chile earthquake: Tsunami threatens hundreds of Pacific islands; 3 missing as wave swamps village

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A tsunami triggered by the Chilean earthquake raced across the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, threatening Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast as well as hundreds of islands from the bottom of the planet to the top.

Three people were reported missing when a huge wave covered half of a village on the Chilean island of Robinson Crusoe, about 420 miles west of the mainland.

In Tonga, where nine people died in a Sept. 29 tsunami, police and defense forces began evacuating people from low-lying coastal areas as they warned residents that tsunami waves about 3 feet high could wash ashore.

“I can hear the church bells ringing to alert the people,” National Disaster Office Deputy Director Mali’u Takai said. “We will move up to 50,000 people to the interior and away from the coasts.”

Waves 6 feet above normal hit near Concepcion, Chile, shortly after the quake.

On the island of Robinson Crusoe, about 420 miles west of the Chilean mainlaind, a huge wave covered half the village of San Juan Batista and three people were missing, said Ivan de la Maza, the superintendent of Chile’s principal mainland port, Valparaiso.

A helicopter and a Navy frigate were en route to the island to assist in the search, he said.

A tsunami warning — the highest alert level — was also in effect for Guam, American Samoa, Samoa and dozens of other Pacific islands.

American Samoa Lt. Gov. Aitofele Sunia activated emergency services and called on residents of shoreline villages to move to higher ground. Police in Samoa issued a nationwide alert to begin coastal evacuations. The tsunami is expected to reach the islands Saturday morning.

Disaster management officials in Fiji said they have been warned to expect waves of as high as 7.5 feet to hit the northern and eastern islands of the archipelago and the nearby Tonga islands.

Waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours of Saturday’s quake. A tsunami wave can travel at up to 600 mph, said Jenifer Rhoades, tsunami program manager at the National Weather Service in Washington. D.C.

Some Pacific nations in the warning area were heavily damaged by a tsunami last year. On Sept. 29, a tsunami spawned by a magnitude-8.3 earthquake killed 34 people in American Samoa, 183 in Samoa and nine in Tonga. Scientists later said that wave was 46 feet high.

Past South American earthquakes have had deadly effects across the Pacific. A tsunami after a magnitude-9.5 quake that struck Chile in 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded, killed about 140 people in Japan, 61 in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines.

That tsunami was about 3.3 to 13 feet in height, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK quoted earthquake experts as saying the tsunami would likely be tens of inches high and reach Japan in about 22 hours. A tsunami of 11 inches was recorded after a magnitude-8.4 earthquake near Chile in 2001.

The Meteorological Agency said it was still investigating the likelihood of a tsunami in Japan and did not issue a formal coastal warning.

Australia, meanwhile, was put on a tsunami watch.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning Saturday night for a “potential tsunami threat” to New South Wales and Queensland states, and Lord Howe and Norfolk islands.

Any potential wave would not hit Australia until Sunday morning local time, it said. New Zealand officials warned that “nondestructive” tsunami waves of less than 3 feet could hit the entire east coast of the country’s two main islands and its Chatham Islands territory, some 300 miles east of New Zealand.

The Philippine Institute of Vulcanology and Seismology issued a low-level alert saying people should await further notice of a possible tsunami. It did not recommend evacuations.

Seismologist Fumihiko Imamura of Japan’s Tohoku University told NHK that residents near ocean shores should not underestimate the power of a tsunami even though they may be generated by quakes on the other side of the ocean.

“There is the possibility that it could reach Japan without losing its strength,” he said.

--Associated Press