The United States ended its tsunami warning on the west coast of the country on Sunday, hours after the eruption of an underwater volcano in Tonga caused waves of more than a meter in California, which however did not cause serious damage.
Just after midnight on the West Coast, the US Tsunami Warning Service lifted its tsunami warning for California, after doing the same a few hours earlier with the alerts it had issued for the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Canadian British Columbia.
“A destructive tsunami has not been recorded,” concluded that service, belonging to the National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in its latest bulletin.
More than thirteen hours earlier, that same institution had confirmed that a tsunami was taking place along the entire west coast of Canada and the United States, whose southern tip is located almost 8,700 kilometers (5,400 miles) from the island nation of Tonga. , in the South Pacific, where the volcanic eruption occurred.
The highest waves recorded were 1.3 meters (4.3 feet) in Port San Luis, about 300 kilometers north of Los Angeles, California; a 3.7-foot (1.1-meter) in Crescent City, near the California border with Oregon; and one meter (3.3 feet) in King Cove (Alaska).
According to local media, there are no indications that the tsunami caused deaths, serious injuries or major property damage, after authorities urged residents across the West Coast to avoid the coastal area.
The tsunami caused “light flooding” in the port of Santa Cruz, California, where beaches were closed and people were evacuated from commercial areas near the coast, although no one was forced to leave their homes, he said. City Manager Elizabeth Smith told CNN.
In Berkeley (California), some 110 people were evacuated from ships and docks in the coastal area, according to local media Berkeleyside; and most of the beaches in the south of the state were closed due to the alert.
On the island of Tonga, in the South Pacific, the eruption of the volcano caused a fierce tsunami with waves that hit the coasts hard and hit the houses and buildings on the beachfront in northern Tongatapu for a few minutes.
The phenomenon was also noticed in Japan, with waves that exceeded a meter in height, and in other countries such as Chile, where almost the entire coastline of the country was evacuated.
The eruption even generated “small tsunami waves” in the Caribbean basin, from Isla Mujeres (Mexico) to Mona Island in Puerto Rico (United States), although these did not at any time present a “threat” nor did they force measures, according to the US Tsunami Warning Service.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern about the Tonga eruption in a tweet posted late on Saturday, offering assistance to Pacific nations affected by the eruption.