One by one, tsunami warnings were lifted throughout the day on Wednesday, July 30, in most of the many countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. These alarm systems were triggered after the 8.8-magnitude earthquake recorded at 11:24 pm GMT on July 30 by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in the Kamchatka region of Russia’s Far East.
This earthquake, the most powerful to hit the region in 73 years, sharply heightened fears that some 15 countries could be overwhelmed by tsunamis, including one of the five archipelagos of French Polynesia, the Marquesas Islands.
These islands spent anxious hours fearing the worst during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. Waves of 2.5 meters were initially forecast, then 4 meters. In the end, those that reached the large northern island of Nuku Hiva and, to a lesser extent, Ua Huka to the east and Hiva Oa to the south, were 1.5 meters high. Only three islands out of the 118 that make up French Polynesia, including the atolls, were affected by the alert; the others experienced only very modest waves.
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Anny Pietri, the French government’s representative in the archipelago, expressed relief that there were neither casualties nor damage after hours of communication with the crisis center set up at the High Commission of the Republic in French Polynesia in Papeete, on the island of Tahiti, 1,500 kilometers from Nuku Hiva.
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