emirates7 - A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 struck Russia's Far East early Wednesday, triggering a tsunami across the northern Pacific and prompting alerts for Alaska, Hawaii, and coastal regions as far south as New Zealand. Though evacuations were ordered in several areas, no major injuries have been reported so far.

In Honolulu, the tsunami warnings overlapped with the Tuesday afternoon rush hour, leading to traffic congestion as residents rushed to higher ground. Sirens echoed across the city, and schools canceled all after-school and evening programs.

In northern Japan, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported a tsunami measuring 50 centimeters (1.6 feet) at the port of Ishinomaki—the highest reading recorded among several locations in the region.

On Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, closest to the earthquake’s epicenter, authorities reported structural damage and evacuations but no serious injuries.

Officials in Hawaii and Oregon urged residents to prepare for possible coastal impacts. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center confirmed that the quake had generated a tsunami capable of damaging shorelines across all the Hawaiian islands.

The earthquake, which struck at 8:25 a.m. Japan time, was initially reported as magnitude 8.0 by Japanese and U.S. agencies, but the U.S. Geological Survey later revised it to 8.8. The quake occurred at a depth of 20.7 kilometers (13 miles), about 119 kilometers (74 miles) east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a Russian city of 180,000 residents. Multiple aftershocks followed, some reaching magnitudes as high as 6.9.