Quake causes tsunami alert

WARNING: WAVES AS HIGH AS 4M EXPECTED IN PACIFIC

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One of the strongest earthquakes yet recorded struck Russia's sparsely populated far east yesterday, causing tsunamis up to four metres across the Pacific and sparking evacuations from Hawaii to Japan.

The magnitude 8.8 quake struck in the morning off Petropavlovsk on Russia's remote Kamchatka peninsula and was one of the 10 biggest recorded, according to the US Geological Survey.

Russian authorities said a tsunami hit and flooded the port town of Severo-Kurilsk, while local media said one of between three and four metres high was recorded in the Elizovsky district of Kamchatka.