“Terrified” cruise ship passengers have been abandoned in Hawaii following a major tsunami warning this morning. In footage shared online, passengers were captured sprinting to catch their cruise, while others reported being left behind on the island.
A busload of people who were abandoned in Hawaii after their ship departed were taken to higher ground, leaving people “upset” and “crying”, according to @mandythecruiseplanner. In a TikTok video, she explained: “The ship is leaving and now we’re going to higher ground and people are upset, and this is not me making light of the situation, this is me just saying it’s crazy, it’s chaos.”
She added: “Nobody knows what’s going on, our bus driver had no idea what’s happening. People on the ship, we have family on the ship, they’re terrified for us. We’re terrified for us.
“We’re going to be going to higher ground now, I’ll keep you posted about what’s happening, I did not expect this. People are crying, we’re going to higher ground, an employer is yelling at people, people are yelling at the employee, this is crazy.”
TikTok user @demifreeman shared another video from the deck of a cruise ship, where dozens of people can be seen running towards the boat, with the text: “POV: tsunami in Hawaii and your cruise is leaving without people”.
She captioned it: “Actually insane. We are going to be in the middle of the tsunami in the ocean.”
Hawaii had been on a tsunami alert since the early hours of the morning after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake hit the east of Russia, the sixth largest on record.
Warnings and alerts have been in place across Japan, the US, Hawaii, Alaska and the Philippines, and large waves have already hit Hawaii, the US, Russia and Japan.
At around 10am BST, officials said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) downgraded the tsunami warning to a tsunami advisory in Hawaii. The evacuation order was lifted for the area.
Hawaii is directly in line from the epicentre of the earthquake in east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.Residents had been desperately trying to evacuate after being instructed to move to higher ground.
A wave of 4.9ft (1.5m) was recorded in Hailo, Hawaii, this morning according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, while a wave reaching 5.7ft (1.74m) was recorded at Kahului, Maui.
In Japan, which is also under alert, the Fukushima nuclear plant has been evacuated. In 2011, a tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant and killed more than 18,000 people.
Meteorologists have warned that the earthquake was extremely shallow at just 13 miles deep in the ocean, which has led to the widespread warnings.