Tsunami warning issued as 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes off Japanese coast, USGS says
Table indicating the escape route in the case of tsunamis. (Getty stock photo)
(TOKYO) — A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck on Monday off Japan’s northeastern coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said, prompting authorities to issue tsunami warnings and advisories along parts of the coast.
“Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters,” USGS said, “hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 300 km of the earthquake epicenter.”
The Japan Meteorological Agency said tsunami warnings were in place for some of the coast along the Pacific, along with lesser advisories and forecasts farther away from the quake’s center.
“Residents in areas where tsunami warnings have been issued should immediately evacuate to higher ground or evacuation buildings and other higher, safer locations,” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said.
The tsunami waves that were expected to have been the highest struck the coast within hours, with the largest one registering about 80 cm, or about 2.5 feet, but officials said they had not ruled out further waves. Official warnings were still in place, although the U.S. weather officials said in an update that, based on available data, “the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed.”
Preliminary U.S. data pinpointed the quake about 100 km, or about 62 miles, off the eastern coast of Miyako, USGS said. Light rumbling could be felt as far away as Tokyo. A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck nearby about 40 minutes afterward, according to USGS data.
The Japanese agency held a press conference on Monday, during which it identified the quake as having been a 7.5 magnitude one. The depth was 10 km, or about 6.2 miles. It occurred at 4:53 p.m. local time, the agency said.
A tsunami warning was issued under twenty seconds after the initial earthquake, an official said. Officials warned people to stay on the alert for about week, as an equal or lesser than quake may occur. The risk was especially elevated for the next two or three days, officials said.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said a “destructive” Pacific-wide tsunami was not expected “and there is no threat to Hawaii.”
A large fire burns near a shopping center following an overnight Russian missile strike in the Podilskyi, Obolonskyi, Shevchenkivskyi and Desnianskyi districts, on April 16, 2026 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least 16 people were killed and another 100 were injured in Ukraine as Russia targeted the country with a “massive” drone and missile attack on Wednesday and into Thursday morning, Ukrainian officials said.
Russia launched almost 700 drones and 19 ballistic missiles, along with cruise missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Ukraine shot down about 636 drones and “some” of the missiles, he added, saying, “Unfortunately, not all.”
At least 16 people were killed across Ukraine, officials said. Zelenskyy said at least 100 people had been reported wounded “as of now.”
“Tragically, there are fatalities in Odesa, Kyiv, and Dnipro,” he said in a social media post. “Among those killed is a boy — he was 12 years old. My condolences to the families and loved ones.”
Most of the missiles targeted Kyiv, the capital, the president said, but damage and deaths were also reported across the country. Some missiles or drones that made it through Ukraine’s defenses struck and damaged residential buildings, Zelenskyy said.
“Another night has proven that Russia does not deserve any easing of global policy or lifting of sanctions,” Zelenskyy said. “Russia is betting on war, and the response must be exactly that: we must defend lives with all available means, and we must also apply pressure for the sake of peace with the same full force.”
Russia has chosen to “deliberately terrorise civilians” with its attacks on residential areas, Antonio Costa, the European Council president, said on Thursday. The EU would continue to “increase pressure” on Moscow, he said.
“Russia must stop this war of terror,” Costa said. “A comprehensive, just, and lasting peace for Ukraine based on the principles of the U.N. Charter and international law must be achieved.”
Russian officials said on Thursday that Ukraine launched its own barrage of drones targeting several areas in Russia. Moscow said its military downed more than 200 drones. At least one Ukrainian drone struck a port on Russia’s Black Sea coast, along with other coastal cities, the local governor said.
A giant banner depicting a U.S. aircraft carrier and the American flag was displayed at Enqelab (Revolution) Square in Tehran, Iran amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran on January 25, 2026. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anado
(LONDON) — As the internet blackout in Iran appears to be easing after weeks of protests across the country, the scale of the Islamic Republic regime’s bloodiest crackdown in decades is now being made public, according to activist groups.
More than 5,700 protesters have been killed since Jan. 8, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, an Iran-focused activist group based in the U.S.
More than 17,000 other related death cases are still under review, the group said. That U.S.-based group relies on a network of activists in Iran for its reporting and has been known to be accurate during previous unrest. While ABC News cannot confirm the number independently, the true toll might be even higher, according to other sources.
What began in Tehran late December in response to the collapse in currency and economic conditions quickly took on a political character — with crowds on the streets openly calling for regime change.
In response, the Iranian authorities launched a brutal crackdown on protests, according to observers.
Those protests intensified on Jan. 8 after a public call for protests from exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-based son of the former shah of Iran.
Internet and telephone access across Iran was cut on Jan. 8, and the country went through its longest digital blackout in its history, isolating protesters from the rest of the world. NetBlocks, an independent tracking company, said on Sunday that the general outages had stretched past 400 hours. The company said service had been intermittently restored for some users in recent days.
With the partial restoration of internet access, people inside the country and others who have left in recent days shared videos and stories with ABC News that shows the horrific nature of the regime’s suppression of the protests.
Eyewitnesses from other cities also described what they had seen as a “war situation,” with some using terms such as “massacre,” “bloodbath” and “apocalypse,” in accounts shared with ABC News.
Saman, who asked ABC News not to use his full name for fear of his safety, was in Rasht — the largest city on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast — when the major protests formed.
As tens of thousands of protesters were taking over streets of the city on Jan. 8, the regime’s forces set the iconic bazaar of the city on fire after shop owners refused to end their strikes and had joined protesters, Saman told ABC News in a telephone interview.
While many protesters and non-protesters were still inside the bazaar area, the flames spread, he said. As people fled, government forces closed off the main exits of the market toward the street and directly shot at people trying to flee the flames, Saman said.
“There was smoke everywhere, a huge fire was there,” Saman said. “As people were going to leave, they shot them all. Maybe some of them were not even protesters. And some were normal people who had raised their hands up.”
Satellite images reviewed by ABC News show visible fire damage at the site of Rasht’s bazaar after Jan 8.
Saman said some of the wounded who were hospitalized, including one of his friends who was shot in his calf, were then taken into custody by the regime’s forces. It’s unclear where they’re being held or whether they’re still alive, he said.
While the deadly crackdown appeared to have quelled the protests and the streets now appear to have been emptied of people, families of the dead and missing, as well as families of the injured protesters, have been left in a state of confusion — scouring morgues, hospitals and prisons in a desperate attempt to find their loved ones, according to people who’ve spoken with ABC News.
Some of the people who were protesting on Jan. 8 have not returned, Saman said.
The regime’s forces “are very strict in returning corpses,” Saman told ABC News. “Some people have really disappeared.”
Saman said the regime’s forces gunned down two of his friend’s sons. He said his friend described an unimaginable scene when he went to collect the bodies from a street corner of the city’s cemetery.
The regime’s forces “had loaded bodies in freight trucks,” Saman said. “Corpses all stripped, corpses of all the girls and boys had been dumped at one corner of Rasht’s Bagh-e Rezvan [the city’s cemetery] where bodies were handed over to the families.”
Martial law remains in force across Iran, according to people ABC News spoke with. Families of victims have told ABC News they have been warned by the regime’s authorities not to hold funerals for their loved ones because those events have proved to be lightning rods for further protests in the past.
“Everyone has either lost someone in their circle, or knows someone who has,” Hadi, who also did not want to use his full name for security concerns, told ABC News. He said he left the country on Wednesday.
“There is fear and pain in the air,” he said. “Anti-riot vehicles at the junctions and anti-riot police in all streets.”
With journalists and international observers denied access to Iran during the wave of protests, the reported estimates of the death toll have varied. But the numbers have been steadily climbing as a network of international nongovernmental organizations has worked to verify the scale of the crackdown. The regime’s forces “are very strict in returning corpses,” Saman told ABC News. “Some people have really disappeared.” Some families have reportedly been asked to pay for their loved ones’ bodies when they’ve attempted to retrieve them from the morgue.
Though Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, described on Friday the protests as a “terrorist operation,” saying the death toll amounted to 3,117 civilians, 2,427 members of the security forces and 690 “terrorists.”
The Iranian regime has been accusing American and Israeli agents of killing protestors and warned the U.S. of any intervention.
However, President Donald Trump said the United States has an aircraft carrier “armada” heading toward Iran, adding that he hopes he would not need to use it. His remarks come after he had warned the Iranian regime not to kill protestors.
“Iran’s message to President Trump is clear: The U.S. has tried every conceivable hostile act, from sanctions and cyber assaults to outright military attack — and, most recently, it clearly fanned a major terrorist operation — all of which failed,” Araghchi said on social media. “It is time to think differently. Try respect.”
Amid the rising tensions between the political authorities of the two countries, many Iranians express on their social media that they feel there is no option left for them to get free from the brutality of the autocratic regime except for foreign intervention. They openly say the only way out of the deadlock is a U.S. military intervention to take the regime down.
However, still some others doubt the idea, saying foreign intervention might push the country towards more chaos in long term.
“For the Iranian government, confronting an external enemy is far easier than confronting its own people,” Omid Memarian, a journalist and analyst, wrote in The Atlantic. “Domestic protests threaten internal cohesion; war produces unity.”
Memarian added that, if Trump “follows through” with his threats “but still fails to fracture Iran’s machinery of repression, then he should expect to perversely strengthen the regime’s base, which will believe it is justified in even greater violence against the country’s civilians.”
Regardless of one’s stance on foreign intervention, most Iranians are still reeling from the terror and despair they have experienced since late December.
“It was a war,” Saman said. “The regime’s war against its own people. People were unarmed, but they came with their machine guns.”
Sgt. Juan Miranda, culinary specialist, 155th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, files in Afghan Special Immigrants into the dining facility, August 20, 2021 at Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar. (Sgt. Jimmie Baker/US Army via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — More than 1,100 Afghan refugees and family members of active duty U.S. military personnel are stranded on an unused Doha military base that has become a target since the start of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, according to U.S. non-profit organization Afghan Evac.
Qatar Armed Forces have been intercepting incoming attacks from Iran, but residents at the facility, known as Camp As Sayliyah, told ABC News they have been hiding in buildings during the attacks and were not initially given bunkers or proper protections to take cover.
During those weeks, they said shrapnel would fall into their bedrooms, even locations where young children were. Since the war broke out, refugees sent ABC News recordings in secret, outlining what they say are the dire conditions at the camp. They asked for their faces to be hidden and their voices altered, due to their fear of being deported or reprimanded.
Three weeks later, ABC News received videos where residents show how the camp installed new concrete walling near the entrances and exits of buildings. They say workers urge residents to enter the bunkers in the “event of a duck and cover alert.”
In response to the residents’ claims of terrible conditions, a spokesperson for the a U.S. State Department, which administers the base, also told ABC News they are “addressing all related operational concerns” including “the safety and security of American citizens as well as the safety of residents at Camp As Sayliyah.”
Mahidewran, a young Afghan mother, told us that her child’s first steps were taken in the camp, where the family has been for more than a year, and that raising her child there has been difficult.
“I’m not always able to provide her with the foods she needs or the toys she loves,” she said.
Her daughter was about to turn 1 when they were initially brought to Camp As Sayliyah, and now she is turning 2.
Apart from raising a child on a former military base, she faces another unlikely challenge: war.
Mahidewran told ABC News sirens go off every few hours in the camp, warning residents to take cover in their buildings.
“I left [Afghanistan] through a legal process by the United States, and when they transferred me to Qatar, we were given safety, an opportunity to rebuild our lives,” she told ABC News.
Ahmad, who said he fought against terrorism alongside the U.S. as a member of the Afghan Command forces, told ABC News his son sleeps under the bed, fearing for his life as missiles continue to fire at the camp.
He said he’s been living at Camp As Sayliyah with his children for more than 18 months, and despite being brought to Doha by the U.S. government, his entire family remains in limbo, not knowing where they will go next. ABC News spoke to refugees who shared similar stories to Ahmad’s — saying they were promised a better life in return for risking theirs when working for the U.S. government.
From July to August 2021, the U.S. evacuated more than 100,000 people out of Afghanistan during Operation Allies Refuge, following the withdrawal of U.S. troops during the Biden-Harris administration.
Nearly five years later, the Trump administration has halted relocation and refugee resettlement efforts, impacting many of those who had already been vetted and cleared to travel to the U.S., according to AfghanEvac. The reports detailing the operation have since been deleted from the State Department website.
Refugees at Camp As Sayliyah said that the U.S. government’s promise of a better life on American soil was broken and that being caught in another war brings them back to the terrifying moments they experienced in Afghanistan.
“We came from a country that was under war for 48 years, before living here we were living in constant fear and anxiety,” Farishta, a teenager living on the base with her parents, told ABC News.
When ABC News spoke with Farishta, she said she was still living in a state of fear and that a worker at the camp threatened her with deportation to Afghanistan if she spoke to a journalist again.
Farishta said she has lived at Camp As Sayliyah for 15 months and often dreams of her future, hoping to further her education.
“I feel hopeless because I am a girl who has been deprived of education and whose future is uncertain,” she said.
“Afghan Nationals at the camp do not currently have a viable pathway to the United States,” the department said.
The plan is to relocate the population to a third country by March 31, according to the department. It said this “is a positive resolution that provides safety for these remaining people to start a new life outside of Afghanistan.”
The State Dept said the “Trump administration has no plans to send these” Afghan refugees back to their home country.
However, those people ABC News spoke to said they have not been told what country they would be going to or when.
Afghan Evac said it has been advocating for refugees at the camp, writing several letters to the State Department, urging the government not to leave the residents at Camp As Sayliyah behind.
According to Afghan Evac, 800 of the people at the camp are fully vetted and approved refugees who were cleared to travel to the U.S. The camp’s residents are mainly women and children, it said.
Shawn VanDiver, the president of Afghan Evac, claimed that there was a pathway and that the State Department closed it off.
“There is no structural or legal barrier preventing these individuals from coming from the United States. The absence of a ‘viable pathway’ is a policy choice, not an inevitability,” he told ABC News.
