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CNN This Morning

Tsunami Threat Triggered by 8.8 Quake. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 30, 2025 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

M.J. LEE, CNN ANCHOR: A warning remains in effect for Northern California. Dangerous currents and surges can happen hours after the initial waves, so please, stay safe.

[06:00:11]

And thank you so much for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm M.J. Lee in Washington, D.C. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. We're following the breaking news overnight of a growing tsunami threat extending from Russia all the way to the West Coast of the U.S.

Hey, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. This is CNN THIS MORNING.

And Hawaii is where we start. That's where they're on high alert, with tsunami alerts for all of the Hawaiian islands.

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(SIREN)

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CORNISH: The governor there warned tsunami waves could, quote, "wrap around the islands." Waves measuring more than five feet started hitting Maui just a few hours ago.

But the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center believes that, quote, "the worst part of it is over."

The tsunami alerts were triggered by a massive 8.8 magnitude quake off the coast of Eastern Russia, where tsunami waves were seen coming ashore in some Russian towns. Local authorities there have declared a state of emergency.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar.

Allison, thank you for being with us. I know you've been following this overnight. Can you just start with sort of where things stand in terms of the actual weather and wave movement?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. So, let's take a look at some of the higher numbers that we've been able to pick up over the last few hours.

Looking at some of these numbers, these are the wave heights from the tsunami that have come in. And we've had several surrounding Hawaii that have been around the 1-to-3-foot wave height range. And remember, that's going to be above what the water level would normally be.

But in Hawaii, we have had four- and five-foot waves recorded. So, again, this is pretty significant. That's going to push that water into streets and parking lots, especially the ones that are going to be right there along the shore and along the beaches. Not necessarily too far inland, which is why the folks tell you to go as far inland and up as you can possibly go.

One thing to note, though. So, here you can see kind of the normal ebb and flow, just these tiny little bumps right through there. Then you really start to see it go. It almost kind of mimics what a seismograph would look like if you were looking at an earthquake, where you can see the ups and the downs.

Now the bigger ones were these first initial few waves. Now we're starting to see things kind of level back off. It is not back down to normal yet, but we are starting to see those wave heights coming back down.

This taken from one of the observation sites in Maui into Hawaii.

As of right now, the only spot that we still have a tsunami warning in place is this small section of orange color you can see on the map here. This is portions of Northern California. Everywhere else -- the Aleutian islands, portions of Canada, the rest of the West Coast, and even Hawaii -- are now down to a tsunami advisory, meaning the threat has started to lower just a little bit for those areas.

The reason the orange color is still here for portions of Northern California is because the bathymetry of this coastline is a little bit different, making them more prone, more susceptible to some of those more potent waves that will kind of come in and crash along the shoreline right there.

So that is in effect still as a warning and is likely going to stay that way for at least a little bit longer.

Essentially how we got here, OK? So, this red dot, this represents the 8.8 magnitude quake that we had. Not all earthquakes trigger tsunamis. It has to be on the correct type of fault. It has to be a large earthquake. It has to be a shallow earthquake. A lot of things have to come together for an earthquake to even trigger a tsunami in the first place.

But once the tsunami does take place, what typically happens is the water gets pushed out in one direction. And you can see that here. And then those waves will continue to propagate outwards, in this case going South and Eastward, away from the epicenter of the earthquake.

The one thing to note is that we can actually time those arrival times for the waves pretty accurately. You start to see three hours, five hours, ten hours, even 15 hours later. We know exactly when those waves are going to arrive.

And this was the timeline that we were given roughly 12 hours ago, shortly after the earthquake happened, of when to expect some of these tsunami waves.

This is good. It allows folks to prepare. It allows folks to evacuate and get where they need to go to be in a safe location.

Then from here on out, it's not just one wave, though, and this is very important. Picture yourself when you take a rock or a stone and you drop it down into the water. It creates ripples. Well, there's never just one ripple. There's multiples.

And that's going to be the same case with tsunamis. You're going to have multiple waves.

[06:05:04]

Then there's a common misconception that the first wave is absolutely the worst. In some cases, that's not. It could be the second. It could be the third wave that comes through before you finally start to see some of the stronger waves and the higher waves come in.

So, it's very important to note that this is likely going to go on for a few hours, even after the initial wave pushes in.

And a lot of that has to do with the fact that this was a very shallow earthquake. We mentioned it was an 8.8 magnitude, but it was only 13 miles deep. And I know when you think about 13 miles all the way down into the Earth's crust, that actually seems like that would be very far down.

But when you talk about earthquakes, when you talk about subsequent tsunamis, 13 miles is actually very shallow. In fact, technically speaking, anything that is less than 44 miles deep is considered a shallow earthquake.

So, again, this is one of the concerns here, because what happens is that water gets displaced from the earthquake. It first goes down, and then you start to have those waves begin to push all of that water onshore. This is what the concern was.

Now, thankfully, based off of this rendering here, we did not have anything this severe, not only across portions of Hawaii, but even across other areas like Japan; portions of Canada, Alaska. We did not see these very high volumes of water, which is very good to know.

But we do still have some areas getting three, four and even five-foot wave measurements because of the tsunami that came through.

CORNISH: And Allison, one thing: can you help us understand the difference between the warning and the advisory? I think this weather season between tornadoes, the flooding in Texas, people are probably a little more cognizant of what it means to be warned of fast-moving weather. CHINCHAR: Right. So, in this particular instance, the tsunami warning

typically means that your wave heights, the ones that we are forecasting, are going to be a higher number. So, it could be three feet versus five feet. It could be one feet, one foot versus three feet.

So, in this instance, an advisory versus a warning. The folks that are under the warning are going to expect slightly higher numbers for those wave heights than the folks that are under the advisory.

Or in the instance of Hawaii, they were at a warning level. But now that we're starting to see those wave heights come back down, they've been brought back down to an advisory level, meaning they are still going to expect some waves, but not at the original height that they were when they were under the warning.

CORNISH: All right. CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar. We'll be back with you later. Thanks so much.

So, I want to bring you now live to the coast of California. CNN's Veronica Miracle is in Santa Monica.

Veronica, I was just learning the difference between, you know, a warning and an advisory, but people have been hearing about this for a couple hours now overnight. How seriously are -- have they been taking it?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Audie.

People have been taking this very seriously. In fact, it's very quiet here. You can't quite see it here from our camera, because it's still dark out. But the beaches, they are completely empty. People have been heeding the warnings of officials, which is good news.

It's also good news that the waves that have come ashore here in Los Angeles have not been significant. There has been no flooding here. It really is truly the best-case scenario given the severity of the earthquake and the potential for the amount of damage all up and down the West Coast and the Hawaiian islands and everywhere else.

Now, those waves came ashore just over an hour ago along Washington, Oregon and California. And the most significant waves that have been reported have come out of Northern California, about over three feet.

In Hawaii, there was also a very big wave that came ashore and some flooding, but no significant damage, which is incredible news there.

Right now, actually, reopening harbors and allowing people to go back to their homes in low-lying coastal areas.

But officials are warning people they want people to remain vigilant. Take a listen.

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ADAM WEINTRAUB, STAFF OFFICER, CIVIL DEFENSE AGENCY, COUNTY OF HAWAII: Until you see a clear trend of descending wave height over a period of several iterations, we won't be issuing that all clear. We expect that we'll be monitoring for some time into the night.

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MIRACLE: And it was chaotic leading up to all of the potential waves that were coming ashore. On Hawaii, actually, there was a man who was stranded on the big island after being left by a cruise ship. Here's what he had to say.

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CAPTAIN DAN SALAS, HARBOUR BREEZE CRUISES: Were taking it extremely serious. We've called in our crew. We're going to crew up all of our boats. We have eight vessels in service. We're evacuating, making sure we have no passengers on board.

And our crew is going to be on standby. We're going to monitor it closely. We're working with the United States Coast Guard and all possible information that we could obtain.

We're really looking closely at the Hawaiian islands. That's a good indicator for us here in Southern California.

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MIRACLE: And that was actually Captain Dan Salas. You know, the man that we -- I was referring to said that he was at a national park. And we'll bring that sound to you later in the hour.

[06:10:06]

But he was left by the cruise ship, because they just didn't have enough time to get back on board.

So, people are asking -- officials are asking people to remain vigilant in the coming hours, of course.

And then the tsunami waves, they first hit Russia and Japan, where nearly 2 million people were evacuated. We saw video of people in Hokkaido in Northern Japan on rooftops, making sure that they were OK, which is very scary. Of course, as we know, there was a major earthquake in 2011 in Japan and -- and the tsunami that followed.

But in terms of damage coming out of Russia, the earthquake, we have seen video of a kindergarten that was damaged and also some of the coastlines there, rocking those ships. And that's what we've seen so far out of Russia and Japan.

Back to you, Audie.

CORNISH: All right. Thank you so much. We'll be back with Veronica. She's at Santa Monica.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, we're continuing our breaking news coverage. Evacuation orders have been lifted in Oahu as tsunami warnings in Hawaii are downgraded to advisories.

Now, officials are still being clear an all-clear has not yet been given.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- see what happens on the big island and the full wraparound of the islands, we won't feel that we are in a position to start seeing and saying that we're kind of in the clear.

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[06:16:04]

CORNISH: We're continuing to follow the breaking news overnight of the tsunami threat that was spanning the Pacific.

Within the last hour, the tsunami warning in Hawaii was downgraded to an advisory. Now, the only warning remaining in the U.S. is along the coast of Northern California.

Advisories remain in effect all along the West Coast, including Los Angeles, where police helicopters are being used to make sure the alerts are heard.

Joining us now from Southern California, CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.

Juliette, first, just, like, how was your night? I feel like I should ask you, given what's been happening.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. Well, I mean, obviously I'm here, and I know a lot of people in the emergency management field. And -- and the thing that's interesting, I will just say, is disaster management is about muscle memory.

So, if you live in Louisiana, you remember -- you know how to deal with hurricanes. If you, you know, live in California, you know about fires. If you live in Oklahoma, you know about tornadoes.

Tsunamis do not have a muscle memory in populations. So, the biggest fear, of course, was that people would either overreact and think they have to run for the hills, because this is a scary movie that they've seen with 100-foot waves, or ignore it.

So, these -- this constant notifications that you're seeing, and the helicopters, and the language and stuff I'm getting on my phones is -- is really to teach people, again, what a tsunami can do, regardless of the size of the wave.

And it's important that they do that. Like, I'll just give you a historical example. 2004 the tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in the Indian Ocean. It was people who understood that, when the water recedes, you run for the hills. Those are the people that survived, because they had a history with tsunamis. It was visitors or -- or new immigrants to those areas who perished.

And that's a little bit what you're seeing with all these announcements in Hawaii and California. Even though we are still under an advisory at this stage, which means just don't go near the water. It's just we don't know what's going to happen next.

CORNISH: Is there also a kind of nervousness? I mean, there was a very destructive tornado season in the U.S. the past few months. Dozens of deaths.

You had the fast-moving waters in Texas, where everybody has talked about the warnings ahead of that disaster.

Do you get the sense in California among officials that they're essentially just abundance of caution?

KAYYEM: Yes. I mean, there is -- there is a lot of forward leaning in disaster management now around notifications. And when it doesn't happen, it's noticeable. Say, in Texas, with the flooding.

The reason why is because in -- in a disaster, time is truncated. We say the runway is short. And so, you want to give people as much time as possible to make decisions, evacuate, get away from the water.

So, these alert systems are imperfect. Maybe -- maybe people will say, oh, they overreacted. I actually think, in this case, they did not.

At no stage was a tsunami warning issued based on, you know, just -- just -- just speculation. And in fact, authorities were quick to move it to advisories when they saw that the wave size wasn't significant, even though the power of the waves is going to continue.

These advisories continue to mean surfers, stay out of the water; people, stay away. (AUDIO GAP) -- it's the seventh wave, which is that could be the worst one. The waves that are coming later.

And we have to remember that in terms of these alert systems, not just for tsunamis, but of course, as we saw tragically with flooding, fires, hurricanes. As we have to lean forward on alerting communities so that they have more time to react and protect themselves and their families.

CORNISH: For this kind of natural disaster, what are the concerns in coastal areas? What precisely are emergency management officials asking people to do who are in that kind of immediate zone of concern?

[06:20:11]

KAYYEM: So, life is No. 1. So, it is essentially get away from the water. And that's -- that's the -- (AUDIO GAP)

CORNISH: And I think we might be losing Juliette. Juliette Kayyem is our senior national security analyst. She'll be back to talk more about what's going on.

We remain in this breaking news coverage, because there are tsunami warnings across the Pacific following a major earthquake in Russia.

Next, the warnings are still in place in parts of Northern California, but for Hawaii, some officials say the worst part of it is over.

Also going live to Japan, where some places there saw waves more than four feet high. We're going to be live from the region later in the hour.

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[06:25:10]

CORNISH: A tsunami warning in Hawaii, now downgraded to an advisory. At this hour, the only tsunami warning still in effect in the U.S. is for the coast of Northern California.

Now, this was all triggered by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Russia.

Drone footage shows tsunami waves flooding a small Russian coastal town. I want you to take a look at this video from the Minister of Health from that region in Russia. It actually shows heroic doctors performing and finishing a successful oncology --oncological surgical procedure as the earthquake struck.

Now, it's 25 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup.

People in New York City are [SIC] coming together last night to honor the victims of the deadly mass shooting at the Manhattan office building.

One of the victims, an NYPD officer who had been working off-duty and was working security in the building. He was 36-year-old Didarul Islam, an immigrant father of two. His wife is eight months pregnant.

New York's governor spoke to her.

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GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D), NEW YORK: I said, is there anything we can do for you? And in her broken English, she just said, pray for us.

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CORNISH: The other victims include a Blackstone executive, a security guard, and a worker for the building owner.

An NFL employee was also injured.

Ghislaine Maxwell is responding to a subpoena from Congress with an offer to testify, but it comes with major conditions. The Jeffrey Epstein accomplice wants immunity. She's got more demands.

The House Oversight Committee is rejecting the idea. And today, people in England will remember the late Ozzy Osbourne. His

funeral procession will make its way through Birmingham in just a few hours. His family will then hold a private funeral.

And ahead on CNN, we continue to monitor breaking news. Colombia has just ordered evacuations along its Pacific Coast following a tsunami alert. Officials are calling this just a preventative measure.

And tsunami waves hit Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast overnight. Only warnings in Northern California remain right now. An updated forecast after this.

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