Woman dies in Japan tsunami evacuation as car plunges off cliff after earthquake

A woman has died while attempting to evacuate in Japan after a major earthquake and tsunami warnings.

In Kumano City, Mie Prefecture, a woman aged 58 was killed when her car went off a cliff while she was trying to leave a coastal area. Following the tsunami warning, the driver was on her way to an evacuation site when her car fell from a height of about 30 metres on a national highway in Homo Town, Kumano City. A tsunami has already hit coastal areas of Russia’s Kuril Islands and Japan’s large northern island of Hokkaido after a powerful, 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off early on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Tsunami warnings LIVE: 8.8-mag earthquake sees first tsunami waves hit Hawaii

Emergency services were called after a person saw the car go over the cliff. The woman was taken to hospital in a state of cardiac arrest. She suffered a severe head injury and sadly died three hours later. After receiving the tsunami warning, the woman had sent a message to her family saying, "I'll leave my car on higher ground. There's an evacuation area."

Warnings are also in place for Alaska, Hawaii and other coasts south towards New Zealand. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told evacuees in the tsunami-affected areas they might not be able to return home by the end of the day on Wednesday.

Mr Hayashi said waves could remain high for at least one day, and he urged evacuees to stay well hydrated in the summer heat. The Japan Meteorological Agency said a tsunami as high as 2ft had been detected as the waves moved south along the Pacific coast from Hokkaido to Tokyo Bay.

Officials urged caution, saying bigger waves could come later. Meanwhile, damage and evacuations were reported in the Russian regions nearest the quake’s epicentre on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

And footage from Kanagawa and Chiba in eastern Japan shows large waves crashing onto beaches, with action plans now put in place in case coastal areas are flooded.

Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said nearly two million residents are now under evacuation advisories in more than 220 municipalities along the Pacific coast as of midday Wednesday.

Shiji Kiyomoto, a JMA earthquake and tsunami response official, said second or third tsunami waves had arrived. Kiyomoto did not say when tsunami alerts would be lifted, and said high waves may last for at least a day, urging residents to stay at safe places.

Japan has suspended the operation of nuclear plants along the Pacific coasts amid concerns about a repeat of the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Authorities fear for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant which is still a site of international scrutiny more than a decade later.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), which operates the facility, confirmed that around 4,000 workers had taken shelter on higher ground. In the 2011 disaster, a series of waves, some as high as 14 metres, overwhelmed coastal defences and knocked out backup generators at Fukushima. That failure triggered a triple reactor meltdown, hydrogen explosions, and a mass release of radiation into the air and sea.