Big earthquake triggers tsunami warnings in several countries

People in Japan have been asked to move to higher ground to avoid tsunami waves

An earthquake off the east coast of Russia on Wednesday morning led to several tsunami alerts across a number of countries in Asia and the Americas.

A tsunami is a larger than normal sea wave. Very large tsunamis can cause damage to coastal cities and towns.

Many of the alerts have since been scaled back in places such as Russia, Hawaii and Japan where almost two million people had been told to evacuate.

Waves of up to three metres are still possible for coastal Chile, Costa Rica, and other Pacific ocean islands.

A map showing which countries and regions are affected by the tsunami warning

The earthquake measuring 8.8 in magnitude, hit the far-east of Russia at 11:25 local time.

Japan has recorded waves 60 centimetres high off the country's north coast.

Waves of up to four metres and flooding has been reported in Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, near the centre of the earthquake.

In the US island state of Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, people living in lower areas of capital city of Honolulu were told to move higher ground.

In the US state of California, people were asked to stay away from beaches.

So far no injuries have been reported because of the earthquake and the resulting tsunamis.

Dr Amy Gilligan, a seismologist (a scientist who studies earthquakes) from the University of Aberdeen told Newsround: "It's very lucky that so far there's been very limited or relatively limited damage for this kind of size of earthquake.

"It was quite a long way from places like Hawaii and the distance this earthquake was from lots of places meant that they had a few hours warning for the tsunami so that gives time for people to take action against it.

"For example, in Hawaii people got an alert on their phones to tell them that they've got a couple of hours before tsunami waves might hit. We can see in Japan, a place where they have lots of earthquakes, the buildings there are built in such a way to be able to withstand some of the big shaking you might get."