Japan has lifted all tsunami¹ alerts throughout the country, almost two days after a powerful earthquake hit Chile.

大地震袭击智利两天之后，日本在全国范围内发布海啸预警。

A tsunami more than one metre (3 feet) high hit the country's northern Pacific coast on Sunday, although bigger waves were expected.

Other Pacific nations were hit by tsunamis² but no major damage or casualties（人员伤亡） were reported.

In Chile itself, however, areas affected³ by both the quake and the resulting tsunami saw hundreds dead.

In the fishing village of Concepcion, 350 bodies were found and in the port of Talcahuano more than 20 boats were swept ashore⁴（在岸上） and dumped in the streets by the waves.

Large waves struck Chile's Juan Fernandez island group, reaching halfway⁵ into one inhabited area and killing⁶ five people. Several more are missing.

Well prepared

Warning systems across the Pacific have improved since the 2004 Indonesia quake sparked a tsunami that killed nearly 250,000 people.

Nations and regions affected by the Pacific "Ring of Fire" all sounded alerts, trying to estimate the anticipated（预期的，期望的） time of arrival of any tsunami following the earthquake, which struck on Saturday at 0634 GMT.

The first tsunami waves to reach Japan were reported to be just 10cm high, with a wave of 90cm following.

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Japan has experienced many earthquakes of its own and was well prepared.

People in areas at risk were ordered to move to higher ground, train services running along the coast were suspended and steel gates across fishing harbours were shut.

In 1960 about 140 people were killed by a tsunami in Japan after a major earthquake in Chile.

Thousands of people also left coastal⁷ areas of the Philippines after warnings of a possible tsunami were spread by text message.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had warned of "widespread damage" across the region following Saturday's quake, but later said waves were not as high as predicted.

A geophysicist at the centre, Gerard Fryer, told the BBC that the tsunami's impact was small because the earthquake occurred in shallow water（浅水域） .

The earthquake was "big enough to do significant damage, but not big enough to do anything large in the far field", he said.