Everything 'Japanese Baba Vanga' has predicted correctly as eerie disaster warning comes true
Millions of people have been told to evacuate after one of the most powerful earthquakes in history triggered tsunami waves.
After the natural disaster struck near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula early this morning (30 July), measuring in at a massive 8.8 on the Richter scale, people living across the Pacific were warned that a tsunami could soon follow.
With Japan being one of the many countries affected by the quake, it didn't take long for people to realise that the natural disaster seemed to fit a prediction made by a woman dubbed the 'Japanese Baba Vanga'.
Here's everything we know...
What is the latest with the tsunami warning?
After the earthquake, which some are suggesting could be the sixth-largest in history, struck, the US Tsunami Warning System told people that 'hazardous tsunami waves' were expected to hit spots along the Pacific coast.
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Nations which have been urged to prepare for the worst-case scenario include Japan, China, the Philippines, Chile, Indonesia, New Zealand, Peru and Mexico, with millions told to evacuate as a safety precaution.
Donald Trump issued a warning to people in the US, with Hawaii and the West Coast set to be hit hardest. One woman has since left people fearing the worst after suggesting she would face the tsunami on a small raft heading out to sea in Hawaii.
Fortunately, authorities in the US state, as well as parts of Japan, Russia and California, have downgraded their warnings, with no deaths reported at the time of writing.
However, a tsunami expert has explained that these countries may well not be out of the woods just yet.
Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator with the National Tsunami Warning Centre in Alaska, explained: "A tsunami is not just one wave. It’s a series of powerful waves over a long period of time. Tsunamis cross the ocean at hundreds of miles an hour - as fast as a jet aeroplane - in deep water. But when they get close to the shore, they slow down and start to pile up.
"And that’s where that inundation problem becomes a little bit more possible there. In this case, because of the Earth basically sending out these huge ripples of water across the ocean, they’re going to be moving back and forth for quite a while."
Who is the Japanese Baba Vanga?
If the natural disaster wasn't terrifying enough, it seems to be the latest in a long list of correct predictions made by Japanese manga artist Ryo Tatsuki.
The 70-year-old, who has been compared with legendary Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga, suggested that a huge earthquake and tsunami would strike her home country this summer.
After a string of previous predictions also came true, her latest premonition even put people off booking holidays to the popular Asian country, and it seems as if people were right to avoid it as the tsunami looks set to arrive.
Tatsuki was gifted a notebook in 1985 by her mother and started noting down her dreams in there, which quickly turned into her first published Manga, The Future I Saw, in which she wrote: "The ocean floor between Japan and the Philippines will crack.
"Huge waves will rise in all directions. Tsunamis will devastate the Pacific Rim countries. A tsunami three times higher than that of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011 will strike the southwest of the country."
While she predicted that Japan would boil slightly earlier in the month, she was alarmingly close when you consider her work was published over 25 years ago.
What else has she correctly predicted?
If that isn't enough to convince you of her psychic powers, Tatsuki also correctly called that a global pandemic would arrive in 2020, and she even reckons it might come back in a few years' time.
She also claims to have had premonitions regarding the deaths of both Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana, while she also shocked locals after predicting the 2011 tsunami and earthquake, which shook the region of Tohoku in Japan.
However, it must be said that her dream about the Queen frontman happened 15 years before his death, which may well have seemed sudden to the general public but actually came four years after his official AIDS diagnosis.
Her manga also predicted that a great disaster would occur in March 2011 and she saw a huge surge in popularity after an undersea earthquake tragically triggered a tsunami which ultimately killed 19,759 people.
So, while she still has some work to do on establishing better timings, there's no doubt that she's got some credit in the bank from all these predictions.
Hopefully, the tsunami which hits Japan isn't as deadly as the manga artist suggested it would be, with early signs positive after warnings were downgraded.
Topics: Russia, Baba Vanga
James Moorhouse