(30 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Off the coast of Hiva Oa in the French Marquesas Islands, France – 30 July 2025
++VERTICAL VIDEO++
1. SOUNDBITE (French) Raita Kaimuko, Hiva Oa resident:
"Since we live on an island that has been hit several times by tsunamis, we took this alert very seriously. We prepared our boat and immediately, we took the decision to head out to sea to protect the boat."
++BLACK FRAMES++
2. SOUNDBITE (French) Raita Kaimuko, Hiva Oa resident:
"At 10:30 pm (local time), there were two more alerts. It was marked as extremely serious, so we took the warnings into account and moved even further away from the island with the other boats. We went out to reach an ocean depth of 1,000 meters, as advised. So my husband drove all night off the coast of Hiva Oa."
++BLACK FRAMES++
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Raita Kaimuko, Hiva Oa resident:
"We got closer to our island, but we are not allowed to enter the port yet because apparently there had been whirlpools. In the port, as is predictable for us, the sea can drop very low, and when it comes back, it causes damage."
++BLACK FRAMES++
4. SOUNDBITE (French) Raita Kaimuko, Hiva Oa resident:
"It was more like a big swell that we felt since we were a bit far from the island. But as we were offshore, we didn’t really feel a wave, you know. It wasn’t a wave, right. It was quite a big swell, and a change in the way the surface of the sea looked."
++BLACK FRAMES++
5. SOUNDBITE (French) Raita Kaimuko, Hiva Oa resident:
"We are relieved this morning. We’re just waiting for the authorities to allow us to return. We have several boats with us out there. We’re not the only ones circling in the bay. There are fishing boats, there are sailboats. We are relieved, the sea is relatively calm."
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Residents in French Polynesia woke up to calmer seas after a night of waiting out tsunami alerts offshore.
Late Tuesday night, French Polynesian authorities warned that several islands in the Marquesas archipelago could be hit by waves of between 1.10 to 4 meters in the wake of a powerful earthquake off Russia’s Far East.
Raita Kaimuko and her husband Humu, who run a diving school on their home island of Hiya Oa, decided to take their boat out to sea to avoid it getting damaged by waves.
"Since we live on an island that has been hit several times by tsunamis, we took this alert very seriously," Kaimuko told The Associated Press.
"We prepared our boat. And immediately, we took the decision to head out to sea to protect the boat."
By 10:30 p.m local time, two more alerts were issued—this time marked as extremely serious and Kaimuko said they pushed further into the open ocean, aiming for deeper waters.
Though no dramatic wave was visible from their location offshore, she said the change in the sea’s movement was palpable.
"It was more like a big swell that we felt since we were a bit far from the island," she said. "It wasn’t a wave, it was quite a big swell, and a change in the way the surface of sea looked."
A tsunami sent waves into Russia, Japan, Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States after an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the Russian Far East early Wednesday.
The quake was one of the biggest temblors ever recorded.
Several people were injured, but none seriously, and no major damage has been reported so far.
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