Japan lifts all warnings, advisories for tsunami

All tsunami warnings and advisories across Japan were completely lifted late Monday morning, following the warning status being downgraded to the level of "advisory" in the early hours of the morning.

At 10:15 a.m. (0115 GMT), Japan's Meteorological Agency lifted all of its advisories that were in place for the entire pacific coast of Japan throughout Sunday evening and Monday morning.

Japan's pacific coastline was hit by a number of tsunamis on Sunday, with government officials overseeing the evacuation of 522, 000 people from 10 prefectures, but no deaths or injuries have been reported following the series of waves that were considerably smaller than the worst-case-scenario predictions.

On Sunday morning, the weather agency issued its first "major tsunami" warning in Japan in more than 15 years, about 18 hours after the 8.8-magnitude quake hit the Chilean city of Concepcion.

The major tsunami warning, with the agency forecasting that tidal waves of 3 meters or higher were possible, applied to the northern Pacific coastal areas of Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures and officials advised more than 300,000 people to stay away from the coast before the arrival of tsunamis there in separate waves beginning after 2 p.m. Sunday.

Following the initial warning, officials warned that a second round of stronger waves could still yet hit the island Sunday night and urged more than 600,000 people in vulnerable areas to stay away from their homes awhile longer.

The agency said it observed a 1.2-meter-high tsunami at 3:49 p. m. at Kuji port in Iwate while the town office of Otsuchi in the same prefecture reported a tsunami of about 1.45 meters at a fishing port around 3:43 p.m.

Tsunamis between 1 meters and 1.2 meters high were also observed in northern, western and southern parts of Japan.

As of 6:30 p.m. local time, the largest wave reported to have hit Japan was about 1.45 meters -- considerably smaller than the three meters included in earlier warnings.

Japanese television on Monday morning showed images of minor flooding in parts of Hokkaido as the water rose above the piers onto a nearby parking lot and to the base of shacks along the coast.

Families in Miyagi prefecture were shown on a number of local and international news channels huddled into an evacuation center as emergency workers propped up a television on a folding chair.

In Miyagi prefecture, one resident told Japan's national public broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK): "A tsunami is really scary and that's why my family has evacuated as quickly as possible. I'm very concerned about what is going to happen from now."

Source:Xinhua

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