FRENCH POLYNESIA ON TSUNAMI ALERT AFTER CHILE QUAKE

PAPEETE - Authorities in French Polynesia issued a warning as a tsunami raced across the Pacific following a massive earthquake in Chile on Saturday.

The high commissioner's office in Papeete put the islands on alert at 2:00 am local time (1200 GMT), saying the first waves were expected to reach the Gambier archipelago at 5:50 am (1550 GMT).

The other parts of the region, including Tahiti and Bora Bora, would be affected over the following two to three hours, they said.

The tsunami could be as high as two metres (more than six feet) in the Marquise islands and on Rurutu in the Australes, the authorities said, while warning people in the latter places to climb to at least 10 metres above sea level.

A huge arc of Pacific nations from New Zealand to Japan went on tsunami alert following the 8.8 magnitude Chilean earthquake, readying emergency plans instituted after the Indian Ocean disaster of 2004.


source:
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/world/02/27/10/french-polynesia-alert-after-chile-quake