Irene Gu was leaving a car park when her vehicle was suddenly blocked by her boyfriend in Taipei, Taiwan.

Multiple travel alerts have been issued to British citizens after Russia’s Far East was rattled by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake, resulting in tsunami waves as high as 13 feet.

Travellers in a dozen countries – the US, Canada, Philippines, Taiwan, China, Tonga, Togo, New Zealand, Ecuador, Solomon Islands, Peru, Samoa, Japan, Kiribati, Costa Rica, French Polynesia and Chile – have been urged to follow ‘local advice’ as evacuations are ongoing.

Follow the latest updates on the earthquake on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula with Metro’s live blog

In Japan alone, nearly two million people have been rushed to safety from coastal areas in the north, with the meteorological agency confirming that sections of the east coast of Hokkaido and main island Honshu had seen waves of up to one metre in height.

Part of Shinkansen bullet train service has also been temporarily axed dueto the warnings.

What is the UK Foreign Office advice?

The UK Foreign Office said: ‘An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.7 has struck the eastern coast of Russia in the Kamchatka Peninsula region. A tsunami threat message has been issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.

‘If you are in the affected areas potentially affected by the earthquake or tsunami you should follow the advice of the local authorities.’

But the FCDO has stopped short of actually warning against travel to any of the affected regions following the earthquake – apart from Russia, but the country has been on Britain’s ‘no-go’ list since the early days of the war in Ukraine.

The advice was released in the early hours of the mornings, and so far the government has not updated it.

So no areas in Japan, the US or Hawaii, for example, were deemed ‘unsafe’ because of the tsunami – but people have still been urged not to travel.

Are there any disruptions to flights?

In the hours after the earthquake – and the multiple tremors that followed – hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from coastal areas, with some of them trying to make a run for airports.

While some tsunami warnings have been downgraded and alerts dropped, as many as hundreds of flights have been cancelled.

Guangzhou Baiyun, Shanghai Pudong and Shenzhen Bao’an International Airports in China, Sendai Airport in Japan,Sultan Hasanuddin Airport in Indonesia and the Las Vegas Airport in the US have all been graded five – the maximum in FlightRadar’s disruption index, indicating major problems.

Pictures showed dozens of travellers waiting for updates after their flights were cancelled.

All flights out of Maui Airport were also stopped for the night, with more than 200 people left sheltering at the departure lounge.

Is the ‘worst’ over?

So far, the impact of the tsunami has not been as destructive as expected.

Chip McCreery, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Director, stressed the ‘worst part of it’ is over.

Yet, South American nations like Chile and Colombia are bracing for the threat.

Chile has upgraded its tsunami warning to the highest level, covering most of its lengthy Pacific coast.

The country’s national emergency service said it was evacuating hundreds of people and school was cancelled along much of the coast.

Similarly, Colombia has issued tsunami alerts and warnings for the areas of Choco and Narino, and for Cauca and Valle del Cauca respectively.

The country’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management said: ‘Preemptive evacuation of beaches and low-tide areas on the coasts of Narino and Choco is recommended. 

‘Go to high ground and away from the coast.’

Meanwhile, the Washington branch of the US National Weather Service said coastal areas west of Seattle were still seeing severe waves.

It asked people not to travel to the shores to watch the waves, and instead ‘keep away.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

A map shows where the warning and other alerts for tsunami are in the Pacific (Picture: Metro)

A map shows the epicentre of one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, along with large parts of the Pacific Ocean now under tsunami w…

A TV show centring around a Chinese invasion is hitting a little too close to home in Taiwan.

On the surface, ‘Zero Day Attack’ could be just another Hollywood thriller – air-raid sirens blasting, explosions ripping through buildings and swarms of military jets deployed – but this is a scenario people are actually preparing for.

Taiwan, a self-governed democracy of 23.3 million people, has lived under the shadow of China’s threat for many years.

The Communist Party claims the country as part of its own territory and its imperialistic rhetoric has only grown more aggressive in the last decade.

The government has previously declared it is ‘ready to fight at all times’ as it concluded a military drill in the Taiwanese waters in 2023.

This is why the 17-minute trailer has raised further alarm in Taiwan. Even the name, ‘Zero Day Attack’, refers to exploiting an unknown vulnerability, meaning that the target has no time to prepare or defend against it.

Set to premier on Saturday, the show starts with a Chinese war plane going missing near Taiwan.

China then sends swarms of military boats and jets for a blockade as the island goes on a war footing. Panic ensues on the streets of the capital, Taipei.

After watching the first episode in the Taipei premier last week, Blair Yeh, a 35-year-old engineer, said: ‘Presenting such a situation (of conflict) can lead to more discussion about what we should do if it really turns into reality one day.’

A war with China has long been a too sensitive of a topic for the nation.

For example, this has resulted in more than half of the show’s crew asking to remain anonymous on the crew list, and some people including a director pulling out of the production at the last minute, showrunner Cheng Hsin Mei said.

‘Zero Day Attack’ is being released as China has stepped up its military preparedness – including at least six rounds of major war games in the past five years and daily military activities close to the island.

This threat is felt in Europe as well.

Only yesterday UK defence secretary John Healey confirmed that Britain is ready to fight in the Pacific if a conflict breaks out over Taiwan.

Speaking on board the HMS Prince of Wales, alongside Richard Marles, the Australian deputy prime minister, he told The Telegraph: ‘If we have to fight, as we have done in the past, Australia and the UK are nations that will fight together.

‘We exercise together and by exercising together and being more ready to fight, we deter better together.’

But Healey later admitted that he was speaking in ‘general terms’, and said the UK would prefer to see any disputes in the Indo-Pacific resolved ‘peacefully’ and ‘diplomatically’.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Ekranoplan – a cross between a ship and an airplane – sits unfinished in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or even a ship? No – it is something much more sinister.

Roaring just feet above the sea, a sp…

Philip Ingram MBE addressed the question ‘When Will World War 3 Start?’