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An earthquake of at least 7.5 magnitude has struck the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, prompting evacuation orders.
A 40-centimeter (1.3-foot) tsunami was seen on Japan’s Hachijojima Island, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Tokyo, after a major earthquake struck the Philippines, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The agency warned earlier on Sunday that waves could reach a meter (3 feet) in height.
An earthquake of at least 7.5 magnitude has struck the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, prompting evacuation orders for some areas of the country and the southwestern coast of Japan.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said late Saturday that waves could hit the Philippines by midnight (16:00 GMT) and continue for hours although there were no initial reports of serious wave damage by then.
The U.S. tsunami warning system initially said there could be waves up to three meters (10 feet) above normal high tide level along some parts of the Philippine coast. She then said there was no risk of a tsunami.
She added: “Based on all available data… the risk of a tsunami due to this earthquake has now passed.”
Phivolcs said people living near the coast in Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental provinces should “evacuate immediately” or “move inland.”
She added: “Boats already at sea during this period must remain offshore in deep water until further notice.”
The two provinces are largely rural and not densely populated unlike other parts of the Philippines.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK said tsunami waves up to a meter high were expected to reach Japan’s southwestern coast by 1:30 a.m. Sunday (16:30 GMT Saturday).
Phivolcs said it did not expect major damage from the earthquake itself, but warned of aftershocks.
The region was quickly hit by more than a dozen aftershocks, the largest measuring 6.4, according to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC).
Raymark Jintalan, local police chief in the coastal city of Hinatuan, close to the epicenter, said that electricity had been cut off since the earthquake, but disaster response teams had not yet detected any casualties or damage.
“We are evacuating people away from coastal areas,” he told Reuters news agency.
Photos posted on social media by the local administration in Hinatuan, which has a population of about 44,000, showed dozens of residents and queues of vehicles moving toward high ground with a large shelter occupied by dozens of people.
Earthquakes are common in the Philippines, which is located on the “Ring of Fire,” a belt of volcanoes surrounding the Pacific Ocean that is prone to seismic activity.
The EMSC said that the magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurred at a depth of 63 kilometers (39 miles), while the US Geographic Survey estimated the magnitude of the earthquake at 7.6 magnitude and at a depth of 32 kilometers (20 miles) and said that it occurred at 10:37 pm (14:37 GMT). ).
