Hawaii Declares Emergency After Massive Quake Off Russia Causes Tsunami

Hawaii Declares Emergency After Massive Quake Off Russia Causes Tsunami

 

Gov. Josh Green urged people in coastal areas to seek higher ground, with waves expected to reach the state within hours. “Do not wait,” he said.

 

By Libby Leonard Heather Knight Francesca Regalado and Shawn Hubler

Libby Leonard reported from North Kohala on Hawaii’s Big Island.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/us/hawaii-tsunami-emergency-earthquake.html

Published July 29, 2025

Updated July 30, 2025, 1:02 a.m. ET

 

Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii urged the public to seek higher ground and declared an emergency on Tuesday ahead of a tsunami that was expected to reach the state within hours, after a rare 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s eastern coast.

 

“I want to reassure everyone that if we’re calm, we’re going to be fine,” the governor said, noting that residents should have enough time to move to safety if they heed the warnings.

 

But in the strongest possible terms, he added, residents should not “stay around the shoreline or risk their lives just to see what a tsunami looks like.”

 

“It is not a regular wave,” he stressed. “It will actually kill you if you get hit by a tsunami, so you have to be out of that area.”

 

Sirens and cellphone alerts blared across Hawaii’s islands on Tuesday afternoon. The first wave was expected to arrive at 7:10 p.m. local time, and early mthe state’s emergency authorities said.

 

Warnings came on the hour and then on the half-hour as the potential emergency drew nearer, urging residents to move inland or to higher elevations from coastal “inundation zones.” The first waves, the governor said, would likely hit the island of Kauai, but the force would “wrap around the islands,” creating a statewide threat.

 

On Hawaii’s Big Island, a cruise ship docked in Kailua-Kona harbor summoned its passengers back to the boat with a siren and departed for deeper waters offshore, which is considered safer than being docked. Police officers warned tourists at food trucks to leave.

 

Jennifer Locke, who runs a West Coast wine company and was on the island for a company event for 24 people, said she had been making a Costco run when hotel staff at the Mauna Lani on the beach north of Kona called to warn her. As she made her way back to the hotel, she said in a telephone interview that the hotel had arranged for everybody staying there to head to the golf course, but that she and her husband were hoping to move to ground that was even higher.

 

“As the day has progressed,” she said, “my level of anxiety has definitely increased.”

 

Among the early evacuees was Jaqueline Mylroie, who owns a general store in the coastal community of Puakō on the Big Island, and was trying to find shelter uphill in Waimea. Some of her neighbors in Puakō had not left yet, Ms. Mylroie said.

 

On Oahu, where Honolulu is situated, many people chose not to wait for official instructions and simply fled, clogging mountain roads.

 

Jake DiPaola, a 39-year-old retired Coast Guard chief, said he found himself stuck near the Ala Moana Center after emergency sirens and a lifeguard on a JetSki persuaded him to get out of the water where he had been surfing earlier Tuesday.

 

“People are driving like idiots,” he said. “I have moved 100 feet in the last hour.”

 

Hawaiian emergency authorities said that all major ports and Hilo International Airport had been closed as a precaution, and that tourists on Kauai were being urged to avoid scenic Hanalei to allow people there to evacuate. On Maui, emergency vehicles and equipment were being staged along highways. 

 

Governor Green, a physician, said that hospitals had activated additional shifts and that he had mobilized two medical evacuation aircraft on Oahu with search and rescue capabilities.  National Guard troops were activated to operate heavy ground equipment, should damage be extensive enough to require debris removal.

 

The fast-moving waves could threaten the electric grid, move cars, throw fences around, damage houses, dislodge trees and leave people in the water drowning, the governor said.

 

The earthquake, about 78 miles east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia, took place at 7:24 p.m. Tuesday Eastern time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It could be the sixth-strongest earthquake ever recorded, according to the Geological Survey, whose seismologists often revise the magnitude of earthquakes as they gather more data.

 

Tsunami warnings were also issued for Japan’s Pacific coast and two eastern regions of Russia, and watches and advisories were in effect along the West Coast of the United States and as far away as Chile. The National Weather Service warned people in California to stay away from beaches and waterways.

 

Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.

 

Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.

 

Shawn Hubler is The Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, reporting on the news, trends and personalities of Southern California.