HK cruise-goers stuck at sea after tsunami warning

More than 1,000 Hongkongers were left stuck on a cruise ship in waters off Japan for three hours after an earthquake that hit Taiwan triggered a tsunami warning, a tour operator has said.

EGL Tours executive director Steve Huen Kwok-chuen yesterday said a cruise carrying 1,100 city residents was scheduled to stop at the Okinawa prefecture’s Ishigaki Island at 11am on Wednesday, but waited for three hours before docking.

“Japanese authorities issued a tsunami warning for Okinawa after the earthquake, so the captain steered the cruise towards the deep ocean, which is safer,” he told a radio programme.

“The cruise docked at around 2pm after the tsunami warning was cancelled, and our guests could carry on with their itinerary.”

The tour operator said the passengers were sailing on the Resorts World One cruise ship.

Huen said the vessel was scheduled to return to Hong Kong this morning and that all the guests were safe.

Leung Wing-mo, a former assistant director at the Observatory, said it was safer for cruise ships to stay in the open sea rather than a harbour. “A tsunami wave may have been one metre or [less] in the deep ocean, [but] it may grow into a huge wave of over 10 metres when it sweeps [to] shore,” he explained.

According to Leung, although a tsunami may move fast out at sea, its speed drops to about 50km/h as it enters the shallow waters of coastlines or harbours.

“What this means is that the tsunami waves become compressed near the coast, and the wave energy is concentrated in a much smaller space, thereby increasing their heights considerably,” he said.

Taiwan was struck by a 7.3-magnitude earthquake on Wednesday, sparking tsunami warnings and resulting in at least nine deaths, as well as injuries to more than 1,000 people.

Huen said 300 Hongkongers were taking part in 11 tours spanning Taiwan’s Taipei, Taichung and Tainan with the company, but none of the trips involved Hualien – the site of the quake. Transport services had resumed quickly after the earthquake and none of the tour group’s flights were affected as they had mainly departed from airports in Taipei and Kaohsiung, he added.

Huen said there were six coming tour groups scheduled for this month and May that included Hualien county in their itineraries, with the earliest leaving Hong Kong on April 16.

The captain steered the cruise towards the deep ocean, which is safer STEVE HUEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF EGL TOURS

“Authorities have said they will reopen the railway to Hualien in one direction, so we are monitoring the situation and working with local partners to decide whether the tour group will set out as scheduled before informing our customers,” he said.

The Hong Kong Observatory also recorded a sea-level anomaly of about 7cm near Shek Pik at around 1pm on Wednesday, saying it was likely to be the result of a subsided tsunami triggered by the quake.