J009-EEUU HAWAII REABRE PLAYAS

STORY: A very powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka coast on Wednesday (July 30) triggered tsunami warnings in Hawaii and along the entirety of the western coast of the United States, and as far away as French Polynesia and Chile.

The shallow quake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan's eastern seaboard - devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 - was ordered to evacuate, as were parts of Hawaii.

By the evening, Japan, Hawaii and Russia had downgraded most tsunami warnings. But authorities in French Polynesia warned residents of several of the remote Marquesas Islands to move to higher ground and expect waves as high as 2.5 meters (8 feet).

Hawaii recorded waves of up to 1.7 meters while in Japan the largest recorded came to 1.3 meters, officials said.

Flights out of Honolulu airport resumed in the evening, the transportation department said.

Waves of nearly half a meter were observed as far away as California, with smaller ones reaching Canada's province of British Columbia. But a tsunami advisory was canceled for coastal British Columbia as well as coastal areas of south Alaska.

Kamchatka and Russia's Far East sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active region that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The quake occurred on what is known as a "megathrust fault" where the denser Pacific Plate is sliding underneath the lighter North American Plate, according to scientists.

The Pacific Plate has been on the move, making the Kamchatka Peninsula off Russia's Far East coast especially vulnerable, and bigger aftershocks could not be ruled out, they said.