Tsunami from Chile earthquake begins hitting Japan’s shores, initial waves appear small

Tsunami from Chile quake hits Japan’s shores

TOKYO — The first tsunami from Chile’s earthquake has hit Japan’s outlying islands, but the initial waves are small.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency said the first tsunami to reach Japan after the magnitude 8.8 quake off Chile was recorded in the Ogasawara islands early Sunday afternoon. It was just 10 centimeters high. There were no reports of damage.

Officials warned that bigger waves could reach Japan’s main islands, and kept up their alert for the nation’s Pacific coastline.

Japan put all of its eastern coastline on tsunami alert Sunday and ordered hundreds of thousands of residents in low-lying areas to seek higher ground as waves generated by an earthquake off Chile raced across the Pacific at hundreds of miles (kilometers) per hour.