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SENDAI, Japan : Japan evacuated more than 320,000 people on Sunday as a tsunami triggered by Chile's massive earthquake sent waves up to 1.20 metres (four feet) high barrelling into its long Pacific coastline.
Floodwaters inundated buildings and left cars stranded in eastern harbours on the main island of Honshu and on far-northern Hokkaido, while white-crested waves raced from the ocean up coastal rivers.
By nightfall, police had reported no casualties and authorities downgraded the threat a notch from a "major tsunami alert", a warning of possible three-metre waves they had issued for the first time in over 15 years.
But more waves of one metre hit the coast after dark and thousands of people readied to spend the chilly winter night in their emergency shelters set up in town halls and school buildings.
The day had started with evacuation sirens wailing across the east coast of the archipelago, with millions glued to their television sets as tsunami warnings flashed across every channel.
To brace for the tsunami, massive steel gates slammed shut across the entrances to fishing ports. Coastguard vessels and air force jets fanned out to search for stray ships still at sea and to observe any damage.
"Please do not approach the coast at any cost," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in nationally televised comments. "We should not drop our guard. I would like people to take all possible measures" to stay safe, he said.
East-coast railway services were halted and cities and towns cancelled festivals and local elections, while public broadcaster NHK repeatedly warned residents not to go near beaches or river mouths.
More than 320,000 people were ordered to evacuate in the Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures on Honshu, according to the Kyodo news agency.
In the small coastal town of Minami Sanriku in Miyagi, about 20 mostly elderly people settled in for the night with blankets and snacks in the sports gym of the Shizugawa elementary school.
"We are working on the assumption that we may have to stay here tonight," said town official Hirofumi Yamauchi. "We have blankets for about 40 people, and we have prepared water and biscuits."
When the tsunami came in the early afternoon, it was weaker than feared.
The initial wave, just 30 centimetres (one foot) high, hit the remote port of Nemuro on Hokkaido, where the sea rose to flood port-side warehouses and leave parked vehicles stranded, as ships evacuated the harbour.
The fluctuating water level meant "we are seeing a typical tsunami phenomenon", Yoshinobu Tsuji, associate professor at the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, told the public broadcaster.
The highest tsunami wave of 1.20 metres hit the port of Kuji in Iwate prefecture, where almost 9,000 people were evacuated.
"At one point, water rose to cover some parts of the port," said a city official. "It is going up a little and down a little."
Saturday's quake in Chile, which killed at least 300 people, revived raw memories from half a century ago for Japan.
In 1960, a 9.5-magnitude earthquake in Chile, the largest on record, sent a tsunami hurtling across the Pacific that killed more than 140 people in Japan.
However, construction standards and safety drills have vastly improved and Japan is today a world leader in disaster preparedness.
"Last time (in 1960), waves that hit after the first one became even more powerful," said Yasuo Sekita, a Meteorological Agency official in charge of monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis.
On Saturday, Okinawa was hit by a big 7.0-magnitude quake, triggering minor tsunamis but causing only small damage to housing and minor injuries.
In 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake in the Tokyo area claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1995, a major quake killed some 6,400 people in Kobe and other western Japanese cities. - AFP/ms
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