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TOKYO: A magnitude-8.7 earthquake in Russia’s Far East early Wednesday prompted tsunami warnings in parts of Japan, Alaska and Hawaii.
Damage and evacuations were reported in the Russian regions nearest the epicenter on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Japan’s meteorological agency issued a tsunami alert for Japan’s Pacific coast, saying waves up to 3 meter (yards) could arrive along the northern Japanese coasts less than half an hour after the alert.
In the United States, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said a tsunami had been generated by the quake that could cause damage along the coastlines of all the Hawaiian islands.

“Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property,” the warning stated. The first waves were expected around 7 p.m. local time.
The quake at 8:25 a.m. Japan time had a preliminary magnitude of 8.0, Japan and US seismologists said. Japan and the US Geological Survey later updated their measurements to 8.7 magnitude and the USGS said the quake occurred at a depth of 19.3 kilometers (12 miles).
The quake was about 250 kilometers (160 miles) away from Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four big islands, and was felt only slightly, according to Japan’s NHK television.
Russia’s Tass news agency reported from the biggest city near the epicenter, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, that many people ran out into the street without shoes or outerwear. Cabinets toppled inside homes, mirrors were broken, cars swayed in the street and balconies on buildings shook noticeably.
Tass also reported power outages and mobile phone service failures in the capital of the Kamchatka region.
Tass also quoted a local Russian official as saying residents on Sakhalin Island were being evacuated and emergency services were working at full capacity.
The National Tsunami Warning Center, based in Alaska, issued a tsunami warning for parts of the Alaska Aleutian Islands, and a watch for portions of the West Coast, including California, Oregon, and Washington, and Hawaii.
The advisory also includes a vast swath of Alaska’s coast line, including parts of the panhandle.
Earlier in July, five powerful quakes — the largest with a magnitude of 7.4 — struck in the sea near Kamchatka. The largest quake was at a depth of 20 kilometers and was 144 kilometers (89 miles) east of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, which has a population of 180,000.
On Nov. 4, 1952, a magnitude 9.0 quake in Kamchatka caused damage but no reported deaths despite setting off 9.1-meter (30-foot) waves in Hawaii.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” young women who worked for the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the latest evolution in his description of how their highly scrutinized relationship ended years ago.
One of the women, he acknowledged, was Virginia Giuffre, who was among Epstein’s most well-known sex trafficking accusers.
Trump’s comments expanded on remarks he had made a day earlier, when he said he had banned Epstein from his private club in Florida two decades ago because his one-time friend “stole people that worked for me.” At the time, he did not make clear who those workers were.
The Republican president has faced an outcry over his administration’s refusal to release more records about Epstein after promises of transparency, a rare example of strain within Trump’s tightly controlled political coalition. Trump has attempted to tamp down questions about the case, expressing annoyance that people are still talking about it six years after Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial, even though some of his own allies have promoted conspiracy theories about it.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend, was recently interviewed inside a Florida courthouse by the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, though officials have not publicly disclosed what she said. Her lawyers said Tuesday that she’s willing to answer more questions from Congress if she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony.
Aboard Air Force One while returning from Scotland, Trump said he was upset that Epstein was “taking people who worked for me.” The women, he said, were “taken out of the spa, hired by him — in other words, gone.”
“I said, listen, we don’t want you taking our people,” Trump said. When it happened again, Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.
Asked if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein, he demurred but then said “he stole her.”
The White House originally said Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he was acting like a “creep.”
Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. She claimed that Maxwell spotted her working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, when she was a teenager, and hired her as Epstein’s masseuse, which led to sexual abuse.
Although Giuffre’s allegations did not become part of criminal prosecutions against Epstein, she is central to conspiracy theories about the case. She accused Epstein of pressuring her into having sex with powerful men.
Maxwell, who has denied Giuffre’s allegations, is serving a 20-year-prison sentence in a Florida federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls.
A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, which requested the interview with Maxwell, said the panel would not consider granting the immunity she requested.
The potential interview is part of a frenzied, renewed interest in the Epstein saga following the Justice Department’s July statement that it would not be releasing any additional records from the investigation, an abrupt announcement that stunned online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and elements of Trump’s political base who had been hoping to find proof of a government coverup.
Since then, the Trump administration has sought to present itself as promoting transparency, with the department urging courts to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking investigations. A judge in Florida last week rejected the request, though a similar request for the work of a different grand jury is pending in New York.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewing Maxwell over the course of two days at a Florida courthouse last week.
In a letter Tuesday, Maxwell’s attorneys said that though their initial instinct was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they are open to having her cooperate provided that lawmakers satisfy their request for immunity and other conditions.
But the Oversight Committee seemed to reject that offer outright.
“The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony,” a spokesperson said.
Separately, Maxwell’s attorneys have urged the Supreme Court to review her conviction, saying she did not receive a fair trial. They also say that one way she would testify “openly and honestly, in public,” is in the event of a pardon by Trump, who has told reporters that such a move is within his rights but that he has not been not asked to make it.
“She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning,” they said.