Pacific tsunami alert triggers panic in Philippines

Manila, Nov 16: Hundreds of residents of coastal towns in northern and central Philippines evacuated today despite official assurances that there was no threat of a tsunami following a major quake in the north Pacific.

Entire villages were abandoned as mobile telephone text messages from people warning of 40-foot waves caused panic among villagers after an estimated 8.1 magnitude earthquake struck 1,700 km northeast of Tokyo late yesterday.

Disaster officials had issued an alert level 2 -- meaning coastal dewellers should be watchful -- late yesterday after the quake but cancelled the advisory shortly after midnight when no large waves occured.

Hundreds of residents remain on higher ground, afraid to go home.

''We need a better advisory system,'' Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, told a local radio station. ''We need a clearer way of disseminating information. We don't want people to panic.'' Small tsunami waves hit Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido just before 2200 hrs (1830 hrs IST) yesterday but there were no reports of more significant waves either in Japan or Russia's sparsely populated Kurile islands.

Disaster officials advised coastal residents in Cagayan, Isabela and Quirino provinces in the northeastern Philippines to return home because there was no danger of giant waves hitting their communities.

But one woman told the radio station people were still fleeing the area. ''Our neighbours are still packing and ready to go to nearby hills. There were only two families left here and we're preparing to leave too.'' People feared a repeat of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami -- Japanese for ''harbour wave'' -- that killed or left missing up to 232,000 people in late 2004. The Philippines was not affected by that earthquake.

Reuters