Residents in coastal areas of Hawaii were being told to evacuate Saturday as the Pacific island chain braced for a tsunami following a huge earthquake in Chile, officials said.
Tsunami sirens sounded at 6:00 am local time (1600 GMT), for the first time in 16 years, alerting residents to the possibility of destructive waves, forecast to reach the islands by 11:19 am (2119 GMT), officials said.
"If you live anywhere in the evacuation zone, you have to evacuate," John Cummings, Oahu Emergency Management Department spokesman, told local media.
"We're going to treat this as a destructive-type tsunami."
Officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves in enclosed bays could reach six to eight feet while in other shorelines they would only be around three feet.
Some 144,000 people in the evacuation zones, including around 90,000 on the main island of Oahu, Kwok Fai Cheung, state civil defense science advisor, told AFP.
On Oahu, all beach parks, golf courses, and the zoo were being closed, said Honolulu's managing director Kirk Caldwell.
It is the first time Hawaii has experienced voluntary tsunami evacuation since 1994. Emergency services were laying on fleets of public buses to provide free transport for anyone needing to leave evacuation zones.
Local media reported showed lines of people at gas stations along the busy Kalanianaole Highway on Oahu and in Hilo as residents left for higher ground.
Caldwell said the city was working with hotels to warn tourists in the famous Waikiki beach area to effect a "vertical evacuation," meaning people should evacuate to the third floor or higher.
He said police will close roads in inland areas at 10:00 am, an hour before the first wave is scheduled to hit, to prevent gridlock in flood zones.
On the smaller island of Kauai, officials said the Civil Air Patrol will also be flying along coastal areas to warn those in remote areas about the tsunami.
The tsunami was moving across the Pacific Ocean in a general northwest direction, away from the epicenter of the 8.8-magnitude quake offshore some 70 miles (115 kilometers) northeast of Concepcion, a coastal Chilean city of around half a million people.
Governments across the Pacific's "Ring of Fire" implemented emergency preparations that were beefed up after the Indian Ocean disaster of 2004, when a series of immensely destructive waves killed more than 220,000 people.
In Hawaii the state Department of Transportation urged ships and shipping companies to get their vessels out of port ahead of the waves.
Spokeswoman Tammy Mori urged people not to panic, warning residents had several hours to evacuate.
"It's important that those in low-lying areas can get to higher ground. We want to remind people that they have five hours to evacuate after the alarms sound," she told the Honolulu Advertiser.
Charles McCreary, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, told Hawaii News Now that everyone should take the warnings seriously.
"Don't put yourself in harm's way. Don't go down to the beach to watch this. A tsunami is a series of waves; the hazard could go on for hours," he said.
"Tsunami waves efficiently wrap around islands. All shores are at risk no matter which direction they face," the Center said.
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