At least 35 boats were crushed in a northern Californian harbour as a tsunami triggered by the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan began hitting the US west coast after rolling through Hawaii.
Some 7,000 people were evacuated from the harbour area in Crescent City, 350 miles north of San Francisco, said emergency services manager Cindy Henderson.
"We have at least 35 boats that have been crushed. We have boats on top of other boats," she said, adding that their last surge had registered 2.5 metres - although it had not yet breached the sides of the harbour.
"Thankfully we're almost at low tide. We're expected to get even higher," she said, adding that, if the water does spill out of the harbour, "those boats will become battering rams once it surges."
