A grandma was curious to know what all the fuss was about after authorities issued a tsunami alert – and decided to take her grandson to the coast for a close-up look.
The woman was watching the local news in Peru on Wednesday morning when she found out about the scary advisory – triggered by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck off Russia‘s Kamchatka peninsula.
She decided to get dressed and drag her grandson from her home in Chorrillos, Lima, to a nearby area overlooking the sea in the hopes of seeing the tsunami form.
‘I wanted to see something because I had never seen a tsunami,’ she said in an interview with Latina Noticias. ‘I also brought my grandson so he could see and learn.’
She seemed to downplay the impact of the warning when she was asked if she was scared – after rushing towards the water at a time when many were running away.
Her unbothered reaction caused the clip to go viral online during the crisis.
The grandma said: ‘Well, they’ve told us it’s something preventative, that it’s not high risk, right? Well, that’s what I’ve heard. It’s not high risk.
‘It’s a precaution because we don’t know how high the waves will be.’
The Peruvian government issued the tsunami warning Wednesday and shut down 65 of its 121 Pacific ports while imploring residents to stay away from coastal areas after the 8.8 magnitude earthquake.
Russia´s Oceanology Institute said tsunami waves of less than 20 feet were recorded near populated areas of the peninsula.
A tsunami crashed through the port of Severo-Kurilsk and submerged the local fishing plant, according to officials.
Russian state television footage showed buildings and debris swept into the sea.
The surge of water reached as far as the town’s World War II monument about 400 meters from the shoreline, said Mayor Alexander Ovsyannikov.
One death was reported and multiple people were injured while fleeing from buildings, including a hospital patient who jumped from a window.
In Japan, almost two million people had been ordered to higher ground, before the warnings were downgraded to an advisory for large stretches of its Pacific coast, with waves up to 2.3 feet still being observed on Thursday.
One person died and 10 others – most of them in Hokkaido – were injured while heading to a shelter following the tsunami alert, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi.
A woman in her 50s died after falling from a cliffside road while driving to an evacuation center in central Japan’s Mie Prefecture.
Tsunami waves of 3.6 feet were recorded in Crescent City, California.
