Hawaii dropped a tsunami warning and evacuations Sunday after a major earthquake off Canada's west coast Saturday night.
After the warning was posted by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Gov.
Neil Abercrombie declared an emergency and officials began evacuating coastal and low-lying areas, KITV News in Honolulu reported.
The first small tsunami waves were seen off Hawaii about six hours after the earthquake, CNN said.
Five hours after the evacuations were ordered, the National Weather Service said the threat of a tsunami had decreased and was not expected to rise again.
Regardless, all beaches remained closed and Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle urged residents to stay ashore, HawaiiNewsNow reported.
"Right now, we do not feel it is safe for anyone to go into the water," the mayor said.
The major magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck in the Haida Gwaii archipelago along Canada's western coast Saturday night, U.S. seismologists said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 8:04 p.m. local time about 10.9 miles deep. It was centered occurred along British Columbia's coast, about 86 miles south of Masset and about 395 miles south-southeast of Juneau, Alaska
A tsunami warning was also issued by the West Coast-Alaska Tsunami Warning Center from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to Cape Decision, Alaska, although it was downgraded to an advisory soon after.
Despite the quake's magnitude, there were no immediate reports of injuries or significant damage in the mostly rural islands of British Columbia.
The Toronto Star's western bureau reported the initial quake was followed by at least two aftershocks.
"We were just sitting down relaxing and all of a sudden -- boom! I thought it was a major landslide," Dave Martynuik, who lives in the village of Queen Charlotte in the Haida Gwaii, told the newspaper in a phone interview.
source: upi.com
