HONOLULU, March 11 (UPI) -- Officials declared the all clear Friday morning in Hawaii after tsunami waves generated by a massive earthquake in Japan hit the islands overnight.
Coastal areas throughout the state were evacuated late Thursday, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. The waves did extensive damage in harbors, flooded the lobby of the King Kamehameha Kona Beach Hotel and, in one spot on the Big Island of Hawaii, traveled at least 100 feet inland.
Gerard Fryer, a scientist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said the water reached a height of 11 or 12 feet at Napoopoo on Hawaii. He said two surges were detected at Kahului Harbor, one 6 feet and the other 7 feet.
More than 100 people came to the lookout on Diamond Head to watch the waves arrive, followed by a retreat of the ocean that exposed hundreds of feet of seafloor. Mike Moylan told the newspaper he came to Diamond Head because he had to evacuate his house.
"It was creepy," he said. "Seeing the water recede that much, it's scary."
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center declared a watch in Hawaii just before 8 p.m. Thursday local time.
Civil defense sirens sounded the alarm at around 10 p.m.
The 8.9-magnitude quake hit offshore in Japan just before 8 p.m. Thursday Hawaii time.
The center warned a tsunami wave is usually followed by a pulling back of the ocean and then by another, often larger, wave.
