KEY POINTS:
Alaska was under a tsunami warning and Hawaii under a tsunami watch early on Saturday after a 8.3-magnitude earthquake in the northern Pacific Ocean, US authorities said.
The warning was in effect from Sand Point on the Alaskan Peninsula in the southwestern part of the state and west across the Aleutian Islands, a 1609.34km chain of mostly uninhabited islands, according to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre.
The warning said an evacuation order was in effect for all low-lying areas along the coast. Sand Point is 917km southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, with a population of fewer than 1000 people.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said a tsunami watch was in effect for a wide area of the Pacific, including Guam, Taiwan, the Philippines and Hawaii.
Stuart Weinstein, assistant director of the centre in Honolulu, said he expected the watch would be lifted.
"I do not expect an ocean-crossing tsunami with destructive power," he said by telephone.
A small tsunami wave hit Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido on Saturday after the quake hit 525km east northeast of the Kurile islands, and 1710km northeast of Tokyo.
- REUTERS
