Small tsunami waves reached the Japanese coast Friday morning, one day after a magnitude 8.3 earthquake struck offshore Chile and killed at least 12 people.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said a wave of 80 centimeters (31 inches) was recorded in the port of Kuji in Iwate prefecture, part of the same northeast region hit by a much larger and deadly tsunami in March 2011.

No injury or damages have been reported from the waves, but some coastal towns have issued evacuation advisories as a precautionary step.

The first reports of tsunami waves came from Iwate Prefecture around 6:20 a.m. local time Friday. By 7:30 a.m., tsunami waves as high as 0.4 meter (1.3 feet) had been reported at Kujikō in Iwate Prefecture as well as at Erimo on the northern island of Hokkaido.

The agency issued a tsunami advisory before dawn Friday for Japan's entire Pacific coast, from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south.

Agency official Yohei Hasegawa said the waves reached northern Japan first and were moving toward the southwest. He said the agency expects the swelling of the waves would continue for a while and could go as high as 1 meter (40 inches), and urged residents to stay away from the coast.

Smaller waves have been detected across the country, up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) in Erimo on Hokkaido and 20 centimeters (8 inches) in Fukushima prefecture, home to the nuclear power plant destroyed by the 2011 disaster.

The northern Japanese coasts, especially those in Iwate, have been affected by tsunami induced by earthquakes near Chile in the past. In 1960, a tsunami exceeding 5 meters (16 feet) hit the area, leaving 139 people dead.

Quake Triggers Pacific-Wide Tsunami

The first tsunami waves struck Chile just minutes after the quake, and have since been fanning out across much of the Pacific Ocean. Outside of Chile, the highest observed tsunami waves have been in French Polynesia, a cluster of islands in the South Pacific; a 4.5-foot tsunami was reported at Nuku Hiva in that country's Marquesas Islands at 7:33 a.m. U.S. EDT Thursday.

Above: Aerial video of tsunami damage along the Chilean coast.

In the Hawaiian Islands, tsunami waves early Thursday morning reached a magnitude of 3 feet at Hilo and 2.2 feet in Kahului, Maui. The peak waves struck the state between 4 and 5 a.m. local time (9 and 10 a.m. EDT). A very small tsunami of just over 2 inches was also measured at Honolulu.

The Pacific Typhoon Warning Center has since canceled the tsunami advisory for Hawaii. Local officials urged people to stay off the beach and out of the water Thursday.

The U.S. government's National Tsunami Warning Center also issued a tsunami advisory for Southern California, including coastal areas of the counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange. The advisory was canceled at 12:19 p.m. PDT.

NTWC said tsunami waves were measured along most of the California coast. The highest measured tsunami wave was at Ventura, where the sea level peaked 1.1 feet above normal tide levels.

A tide gauge at Santa Monica, California, measured the initial tsunami wave early Thursday morning, with a fluctuation of about one foot in less than 15 minutes , according to the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Very small tsunami waves were observed even farther north. Port Orford, Oregon, reported a 3-inch tsunami at 9:06 a.m. PDT. In Alaska, tsunami waves of around half a foot were measured at Nikolski and Sand Point early Thursday afternoon.

Such waves are not a danger to those on land, but they can create unusual and dangerous currents posing a danger to swimmers and boaters.

The L.A. County Office of Emergency Management advised fishermen, beachgoers and visitors to stay off beaches, harbor areas and jetties until the advisory is lifted. No evacuations were ordered for L.A. County coastal areas.

Tsunami advisories have also been canceled for American Samoa. The first wave reached Pago Pago around 1:54 a.m. local time (8:54 a.m. EDT), and a peak height of 2.2 feet just under 90 minutes later.

Initial tsunami wave heights up to 1.1 feet were recorded in the French Polynesian Island of Rikitea , about 3,900 miles west of Lima, Peru in the South Pacific Ocean early Thursday morning, U.S. time. Nuku Hiva , another French Polynesian island about 1,000 miles north-northwest of Rikitea, measured a 4.5-foot tsunami wave height.

The lead tsunami waves reached as far west as Vanuatu just before midday Thursday U.S. time, where a 0.2 foot wave height was measured.

The gauge in Coquimbo, Chile, recorded three tsunami waves of at least 4 meters (13 feet) each, including a maximum tsunami wave height 15.1 feet above normal tide levels. Several other Chilean coastal cities have recorded tsunami waves as well, though none nearly as dramatic as those in Coquimbo.

Video posted to social media shows flooding from the tsunami invading the resort city of Concón in Valparaiso Province.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the main shock struck at 7:54 p.m. Chile time (6:54 p.m. EDT in the U.S.) about 34 miles (54 km) west of Illapel, Chile, or about 145 miles (233 km) north-northwest of Santiago, Chile's largest city. It is the planet's strongest quake of 2015 thus far.

Officials in Chile issued a tsunami warning for the entire coastline of the country, advising everyone near the coast to move to higher ground. The tsunami warning was dropped for Chile's two southernmost regions shortly after 11 p.m. local time.

The quake was so strong that shaking was felt across much of South America. The strongest shaking was reported in Coquimbo and La Serena, where the ground motions registered at level VIII (eight) on the 12-point Mercalli scale, according to Chilean authorities. Such shaking is classified as "severe" and can cause severe damage in poorly built structures.

The USGS "Did You Feel It?" website received reports of level IX (nine) shaking, considered "violent" on the Mercalli scale, in Illapel.

Widespread power outages have been reported near the epicenter, and Chile's emergency management network, Red Nacional de Emergencia, said cellular phone networks have "collapsed" in some regions. RNE also said it has received reports of landslides in hilly sections of Salamancas, Coquimbo, and Los Vilos, in the region closest to the quake epicenter.

Officials ordered people to evacuate low-lying areas along the 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) of Chile's Pacific shore, from Puerto Aysen in the south to Arica in the north. Fishing boats headed out to sea and cars streamed inland carrying people to higher ground. Santiago's main airport was evacuated as a precaution.

Authorities said many houses collapsed in the inland city of Illapel, about 175 miles (280 kilometers) north of Santiago.

Electricity was knocked out, leaving the city in darkness. "We are very scared. Our city panicked," Cortes said.

Thousands of Illapel residents slept outside Thursday night after the temblor destroyed their homes. Many of those people were inside their dwellings, some made of concrete, when the intense shaking began.

"I thought it was the end of the world and we were going to die," said Illapel resident Manuel Moya, who slept on the ground after his home was destroyed. He and his wife were watching television in their bed when the tremor began, and both scrambled outside in their underwear, fearing the house would collapse on top of them. After the quake, neighbors brought them clothes.

"They said it was a magnitude 8 but it felt like a 10," he added.

The quake was immediately followed by four aftershocks of 6.0 or greater magnitude within 30 minutes. The tremors measured 6.3, 6.1, 6.2 and 7.0, striking at 7:59, 8:03, 8:16 and 8:18 local time, respectively. Additional strong aftershocks struck at 10:41 p.m. Wednesday (magnitude 6.4) and at 12:55 and 1:10 a.m. Thursday (magnitudes 6.2 and 6.3, respectively).

Numerous other aftershocks registering between 5.0 and 5.9 on the moment magnitude scale occurred in the hours after the main earthquake, according to the USGS.

Chile's Earthquake History

A magnitude-8.8 quake and ensuing tsunami in south-central Chile in 2010 killed more than 500 people, destroyed 220,000 homes, and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts. That quake released so much energy, it actually it shortened the Earth's day by a fraction of a second by changing the planet's rotation.

The quake had huge ramifications, both political and practical, prompting the Andean nation to improve its alert systems for both quakes and tsunamis.

Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries because just off the coast, the Nazca tectonic plate plunges beneath the South American plate, pushing the towering Andes cordillera to ever-higher altitudes.

The strongest earthquake ever recorded on Earth happened in Chile – a magnitude-9.5 tremor in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people.