Tonga volcano eruption triggers evacuation advisories, metre-high waves in Japan
January 16, 2022 at 12:20 am EST
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens were advised to evacuate on Sunday as waves of more than a metre hit coastal areas, public broadcaster NHK reported, after the eruption of an underwater volcano off Tonga triggered tsunami warnings.
Around 230,000 people were advised to evacuate across eight prefectures due to the tsunami risk, NHK reported. The alert included areas hit by Japan's deadly 2011 tsunami.
Ten boats were capsized in Kochi prefecture on Shikoku island in southern Japan, NHK said, and Japan Airlines cancelled 27 flights at airports across the country.
The overnight disruption caused delays to rail and postal services in some areas, Kyodo News reported, with some residents passing a cold night after evacuating to higher ground.
A red tsunami warning - the second-highest in Japan's domestic scale - for Iwate prefecture in northern Japan was lifted late in the morning local time, NHK reported, with the less severe yellow tsunami advisory in place along Japan's eastern coast lifted at 2:00 pm (0500 GMT) local time.
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Tom Hogue and Kenneth Maxwell)
NHK SPRING CO., LTD. is a Japan-based company mainly engaged in the manufacture and sale of suspension springs, seat products and automobile-related products. It has four business segments. The Suspension Springs segment manufactures and sells coil springs, board springs, stabilizers, torsion bars, stabilizer links, bellows, and stabilizer linkers. The Seating segment offers automobile seats, seat-related products, as well as interior equipment. The Precision Component segment offers suspensions for hard disk drives (HDDs), mechanism parts for HDDs, wire springs, lamella springs, probe units for liquid crystal and semiconductor checking, as well as precision processed goods. The Industrial Equipment segment manufactures and sells brazing goods, ceramic products, spring mechanism goods, piping support installations, parking systems, polyurethane products, security products, lighting apparatus and golf shafts and others.