Malta this evening issued tsunami warnings for the following countries/islands:
American Samoa, Antarctica, Australia, Belau, Chile, Chuuk, Colombia, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Fr. Polynesia, Guam, Guatemala, Hawaii, Honduras, Howland-Baker, Indonesia, Japan, Jarvis Islands, Johnston Islands, Kermadec Island, Kiribati, Kosrae, Marcus Islands, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Midway Island, N. Marianas, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niue, Palmyra Islands, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Pitcairn, Pohnpei, Russia, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wake Islands, Wallis-Futuna and Yap,
It called on Maltese travellers who are on the coast of any of the mentioned countries to avoid coastal areas and to inform the nearest Maltese representative of their presence and provide their contact details.
Embassies
Australia
Tel: 0061 (2) 6290 1724, 6290 1573
Emergency no 0061 0 433 799 746
Russia
Tel: 007 (495) 237 1939, 230 2524
Mob: 007 (903) 729 9231; 007 (905) 512 4111
China
VOIP: 2204 2016
Tel: 0086 (10) 6532 3114,
Emergency mobile: 0086 13901017417
USA
Tel: 001 (202) 462 3611/2
Emergency mobile: 001 (202) 7163617
Honorary Consulates
Chile
Mr Juan Eduardo Palma Jara
Tel: 0056 (2) 367 6500
Colombia
Mr Antonio Schembri
Tel: 0057 (01) 522 0563
Costa Rica
Dr David Reuben Harris
Tel: 00506 22990 3737
Mr David Reuben Robert Hatounian
Tel: 00506 2290 3737
Ecuador
Mr Trevor J. Harding
Tel: 593 4 256 0752 Mobile: 593 9436 0900
Japan
Prof. Rei Shiratori
Tel: 00813 3460 2392
New Zealand
Auckland
Mrs Patricia Thake Tel: 027-2912059 Mobile: 064 2 7291 2059
Wellington
Dr Carmen Dalli Tel: 0064 4 463 5168, 0064 970 2509 Mob: 0064 21 140 9038
Panama
Dr Horacio Valdes Barrios
Tel: 00507. 269.2641
Peru
Dr Eduardo Jose Montenegro Soria
Tel: 00 (511) 4401331, (511) 2225438
Maltese nationals in countries where there are no Maltese representatives should inform of their presence and provide their contact information to an EU embassy present in the country or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Hundreds of people have died after a tsunami triggered by one of the largest earthquakes on record smashed into Japan's eastern coast.
The massive wave swept away ships, cars and homes while widespread fires burned out of control.
Hours later, the tsunami hit Hawaii thousands of miles across the Pacific but did not cause major damage.
Warnings blanketed the Pacific, putting areas on alert as far away as South America, Canada, Alaska and the entire US West coast.
In north-eastern Japan, the area around a nuclear power plant was evacuated after the reactor's cooling system failed.
Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in the north-eastern coastal city of Sendai, the city in Miyagi prefecture, or state, closest to the epicentre.
Another 137 were confirmed killed, with 531 people missing. Police also said 627 people were injured.
The magnitude-8.9 offshore quake unleashed a 23-foot (seven-metre) tsunami and was followed for hours by more than 50 aftershocks, many of them of more than magnitude 6.0.
Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicentre.
A large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of being extinguished, public broadcaster NHK said.
"The earthquake has caused major damage in broad areas in northern Japan," Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a news conference.
The quake was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that struck New Zealand late last month, devastating the city of Christchurch.
"The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month's worth of energy consumption" in the United States, said US Geological Survey Scientist Brian Atwater.
The government ordered thousands of residents near a nuclear power plant in the city of Onahama to move back at least two miles from the plant. The reactor was not leaking radiation but its core remained hot even after a shutdown. The plant is 170 miles north-east of Tokyo.
Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants as well, but there was no radiation leak at either of them.
Japan's coast guard said it was searching for 80 dock workers on a ship that was swept away from a shipyard in Miyagi.
Even for a country used to earthquakes, this one was of horrific proportions because of the tsunami that crashed ashore, swallowing everything in its path as it surged several miles inland before retreating.
The apocalyptic images on Japanese TV of powerful, debris-filled waves, uncontrolled fires and a ship caught in a massive whirlpool resembled scenes from a Hollywood disaster film.
Large fishing boats and other vessels rode high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way.
Upturned and partially submerged cars bobbed in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.
The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing directions and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the homes, probably because of burst gas pipes.
Waves of muddy waters flowed over farmland near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. Sendai airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.
Roads to the worst-hit coastal areas buckled. Telephone lines snapped.
Train services in north-eastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serve 10 million people a day, were suspended, leaving untold numbers stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.
President Barack Obama said the US "stands ready to help" Japan.
NHK said more than four million buildings were without power in Tokyo and its suburbs.
As night fell, Tokyo's streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get around and out of the city. Pedestrians swarmed the pavements to walk home, or at least find a warm place to spend the night as the temperatures dropped.
Tomoko Suzuki and her elderly mother stood on a crowded city centre corner, unable to get to their 29th-floor condominium because the lift wasn't working. They unsuccessfully tried to hail a taxi to a relative's house and couldn't find a hotel room.
"We are so cold," said Suzuki. "We really don't know what to do."
A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 30-metre flames whipping into the sky.
"Our initial assessment indicates that there has already been enormous damage," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. "We will make maximum relief effort based on that assessment."
He said the Defence Ministry was sending troops to the hardest-hit region. A utility aircraft and several helicopters were on the way.
Also in Miyagi prefecture, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co.
A reactor area of a nearby plant was leaking water, the company said. But it was unclear if the leak was caused by the tsunami or something else. There were no reports of radioactive leaks at any of Japan's nuclear plants.
Jefferies International Ltd., a global investment banking group, estimated overall losses of about 10 billion dollars.
Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in northern Iwate prefecture, said officials were having trouble getting an overall picture of the destruction.
"We don't even know the extent of damage. Roads were badly damaged and cut off as tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things," he said.
The US Geological Survey said the 2:46 pm quake was magnitude 8.9, the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world.
The quake struck at a depth of six miles about 80 miles off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles north-east of Tokyo.
Several quakes hit the same region in recent days, including one measured at magnitude 7.3 on Wednesday that caused no damage.
A tsunami warning was extended to a number of areas in the Pacific, Southeast Asia and Latin America, including Japan, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines, authorities ordered an evacuation of coastal communities, but no unusual waves were reported.
Thousands fled homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to two metres high, but waves of only four inches were measured.
The first waves hit Hawaii about 9 am local time.
A tsunami about 2.1 metres high was recorded on Maui and a wave at least a metre high was recorded on Oahu and Kauai. Officials warned that the waves would continue and could get larger.
Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 in 1923 in Kanto that killed 143,000 people, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe in 1996 killed 6,400 people.
Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" - an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 % of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Boxing Day 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 nations.
A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.
Waves surged along California's coast from the tsunami.
The tide began rising shortly after 7:30 am along beaches in Crescent City, where the tsunami was expected to hit the hardest in California.
Officials predicted that waves could reach as high as seven feet.
Local officials activated tsunami warning sirens along the coast and urged residents in low-lying areas to seek higher ground.
At Santa Cruz, some surfers ventured out on the water to take advantage of decent waves ahead of the tidal wave - and stayed in the water until the level plunged when the tsunami hit and caused several surges.
Elsewhere, emergency officials closed some beaches and advised people to stay away from the shoreline.
VAPOUR PLAN AT QUAKE-HIT REACTOR
Japanese authorities will release slightly radioactive vapour to ease pressure at nuclear reactor whose cooling system failed.
The failure occurred after a power outage caused by today's massive earthquake off north-eastern Japan.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure inside one of six boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.
The agency said the radioactive element in the vapour that will be released would not affect the environment or human health.