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Tsunami warnings were lifted on several South Pacific islands on Friday, allowing tens of thousands of evacuees to return home as the risk of a series of powerful earthquakes appeared to diminish.
Magnitude 7.3, 7.4 and 8.1 earthquakes struck near New Zealand’s remote Kermadec Islands in rapid succession early Friday, followed by dozens of powerful aftershocks and a series of Pacific tsunami warnings.
Thousands of people headed for high ground as waves of up to three meters (11 feet) had been forecast in New Caledonia and Vanuatu, with states and territories from New Zealand to Peru, Russia and Antarctica also on high alert.
In New Zealand, authorities said the entire North Island town of Opotiki, roughly 4,000 people, had been emptied.
A six-hour drive up the coast, Keith Wooderson said he sought refuge in the hills outside the city.
“There were queues and queues of cars as far as the eye could see. We didn’t even get out of our truck, we just waited for everything to clear,” he said. “There was no panic, everything was pretty orderly.”
In the end, the biggest one-meter swells were recorded in New Caledonia’s Loyalty Islands, and eyewitnesses in Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila saw only a few gigantic waves splashing against the boardwalk, drenching the paved promenade. .
There were no reports of major damage and the only immediate impact to human health appeared to be mild dehydration among travelers trapped for hours in heavy traffic on the French island of Tahiti.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the threat was not completely over (South and Central America could still see modest tsunami waves arriving as of 13:30 GMT), but many warnings were lifted from local authorities. .
Authorities in Australia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Vanuatu and French Polynesia were among those who rescinded or lowered their initial warnings.
The sense of relief was in contrast to initial fears, when sirens sounded, schools were evacuated by the sea, and some parents were told to move to high ground immediately without trying to pick up their children, fearing that the Traffic will block emergency routes and leave many of them vulnerable or stranded.
In New Zealand, where there was an evacuation order for a swath of coastal communities, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed her relief.
“It is difficult not to feel that our country is having a streak of bad luck, when there is an earthquake, a tsunami warning and a pandemic to face in a single day,” he said.
Fiona Rudsdale, who runs the Whangarei Central Holiday Park on New Zealand’s North Island, slept during the initial earthquake, but was awakened by tsunami warning sirens.
He immediately began organizing the evacuation of about 30 guests from the trailer park to the top of a nearby hill.
“We took them to the top of Morningside Park, from there you can look down,” he told AFP.
“We put in some food and drink, it all worked out pretty well. You still have a couple of idiots in town driving around, but most of them are being nice and doing what they are told.”
In other areas some hardy or foolish residents were seen braving the ocean to swim or surf.
Emergency Services Minister Kiri Allan said coastal communities responded to the warnings.
“Very quickly people collected themselves, took their backpacks, got in the cars and congregated inside or on top and now they are watching it unfold,” he said.
The local coast guard ordered hundreds of boats that were still in the ocean to head to deeper waters as a precaution.
– The earth moved –
The largest of the earthquakes occurred about 1,000 kilometers (640 miles) off the coast of New Zealand at 8:28 a.m. (1928 Thursday GMT), the United States Geological Survey said.
It was preceded by two seismic shakes that were also enormously powerful, in an unusually strong cluster even for the Pacific Ring of Fire, where Earth’s tectonic plates collide.
“On average, an earthquake of magnitude eight or greater only occurs once a year anywhere in the world, so this is a significant earthquake with a depth and magnitude that can potentially generate a tsunami,” said Adam Pascale, scientist. head of ESS Earth Sciences.
Prime Minister Ardern was one of those who woke up early in the morning.
“I hope everyone is well, especially on the east coast, that they felt the full force of that earthquake,” he posted on Instagram after the initial shaking at 2:27 am.
The South Pacific nation recently marked the 10th anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake, when a 6.3 earthquake killed 185 in the South Island city.
strs-ns-arb / hg
