The death toll from yesterday's 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile continued to rise today, with officials estimating more than 750 casualties.
More than 350 people were killed in the coastal town of Constitucion, which was also hit by a tsunami, state television quoted emergency officials as saying.
Television images from the fishing port of Constitucion, about 350 km (220 miles) southwest of the capital Santiago, showed houses destroyed by the quake and a tsunami, which had washed large fishing boats onto land and flipped over cars.
The death toll from Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake already stood at 400 before news of the devastation in Constitucion.
Chileans fearful of aftershocks camped outside today, as officials struggled to grasp the scale of damage to transport, energy and housing infrastructure. Two million people in Chile have been affected by the earthquake, said president Michelle Bachelet, adding that it would take officials several days to evaluate the "enormous quantity of damage".
Around 100 people are trapped under the rubble of a building that collapsed in the city of Concepcion in south-central Chile, the mayor said today.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said there had been no Irish casualties reported yet, but said communications were sporadic.
Tsunami waves killed at least four people on Chile's Juan Fernandez islands and caused serious damage to the port town of Talcahuano.
Tsunami waves of up to 1.5 metres (5 ft) hit far-flung Pacific regions from the Russian far east and Japan to New Zealand's Chatham Islands today in the wake of one of the world's most powerful tremors in a century.
Hundreds of thousands of residents in Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and Russia's Kamchatka were told to evacuate after the quake but there were no immediate reports of damage.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) put the country's highest tsunami so far at 1.2 metres in the port of Kuji, northeast Japan. Smaller waves hit a swathe of the country from the small island of Minamitori 1,950 km (1,200 miles) south of Tokyo to Hokkaido island in the north.
Japanese officials have ordered or advised some 570,000 households along the country's Pacific coast to evacuate and said it would be hours before evacuees could go home.
"The full-fledged tsunami waves are starting to arrive," University of Tokyo professor Yoshinobu Tsuji told NHK public TV. "This is not the last one," he said.
It was Japan's first major tsunami warning in 17 years and only the fourth since 1952, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
"Carelessness could be the biggest enemy," prime minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters.
Train services were halted in many areas along the Pacific coast and many highways were closed. Two nuclear plants in the area were operating normally and Japan's Nippon Oil Corp said its 145,000 barrel-per-day Sendai refinery was also functioning as usual.
Police cars and fire trucks patrolled coastal roads and fishing boats, seeking to avoid any tsunami, headed out to sea under gray skies, with snow flurries in some areas.
The area that could be hit hardest, where around 140 people died in a previous tsunami 50 years ago, has many small harbours that could concentrate the force of a tsunami.
"We experienced tsunami 50 years ago. But it sounded like it could be worse this time, so I was afraid," said 69-year old Fumiko Nakajima in a fishing town on the outskirts of Sendai. She said the evacuation of residents, many of whom are elderly, went smoothly due to frequent drills.
The tsunami warning covered the eastern seaboard of Japan, although for Tokyo Bay and many other areas the warnings were for waves of only around one metre (3 ft).
The first waves to hit New Zealand were reported at the remote Chatham Islands, around 800km (500 miles) east of New Zealand, with surges of up to 1.5 metres measured, the Civil Defence Ministry said.
A resident on one of the smaller islands in the group, Pitt, said the surges were continuing and getting bigger.
"The bay empties right out. It takes about a minute and a half and then it surges back in, in about the same amount of time," Bernadette Malinson told Radio New Zealand. "The surges have been getting bigger - at least 2 metres at present."
Authorities in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka region lifted a tsunami alert after a series of small waves appeared to cause no damage, a spokeswoman for the Emergencies Ministry said.
A tsunami hit beaches in eastern Australian but there were not initial reports of damage.
Australia issued a tsunami alert for most of its east coast and eastern parts of the island state of Tasmania, but authorities said there were no concerns about major inundation.
Hawaii dodged serious damage yesterday when a tsunami merely lapped ashore, although residents were warned to stay away from coastal areas because the ocean could remain unsettled for several more hours.
Reuters