HONOLULU — With a rapt world watching the drama unfold on live television, a tsunami raced across a quarter of the globe Saturday and set off fears of a repeat of the carnage that caught the world off guard in Asia in 2004.
Japan was still bracing for the prospect of large waves, but the tsunami spawned by Chile’s earthquake delivered nothing more than a glancing blow to the U.S. and South Pacific.
Pacific islands had ample time to prepare. By the time the tsunami hit Hawaii — a full 16 hours after the quake — officials had already spent the morning ringing emergency sirens, blaring warnings from airplanes and ordering residents to higher ground. The tsunami caused no real damage in Hawaii, and the islands were back to paradise by the afternoon.
There were no immediate reports of widespread damage, injuries or deaths in the U.S. or in the Pacific islands. Waves hit California but barely registered amid stormy weather.
It was still possible that the tsunami would gain strength again as it heads to Japan, and nearly 50 countries and island chains remained under tsunami warnings from Antarctica to Russia late Saturday. But scientists said the worst threat had passed.
“We dodged a bullet,” said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.
The tsunami raised fears that the Pacific could fall victim to the type of waves that killed 230,000 people in the Indian Ocean in 2004, when there was little to no warning and much confusion.
Officials said the opposite occurred after the Chile quake: They were off in their predictions for the size of the waves and the threat.
“We expected the waves to be bigger in Hawaii, maybe about 50 percent bigger than they actually were,” Fryer said. “We’ll be looking at that.”
In the hours before the tsunami, boats and people near the coast in Hawaii were evacuated. Beaches were empty. Hilo International Airport, located along the coast, was closed.
Residents lined up at supermarkets and at gas stations.
To avoid damage to ships, the Navy said, it moved a frigate, three destroyers and two smaller vessels out of Pearl Harbor and a cruiser out of Naval Base San Diego.
The tsunami caused a series of wave surges in Hawaii that were about 20 minutes apart, and the waves arrived later and were smaller than originally predicted.
The highest wave at Hilo measured 5.5 feet high, while Maui saw some as high as 6.5 feet.
Officials in Tonga and the Samoas evacuated coastal residents and used radio, television and mobile-phone text messages to alert residents.
Sea surges hit 6 1/2 feet at several places in New Zealand. A nude photo shoot involving scores of people, scheduled for the coastline near the capital, Wellington, was canceled by the tsunami threat before any of the volunteers could strip.
