HONOLULU (KHON2) — The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency has issued a tsunami warning as of 2:43 p.m. for the Hawaiian Islands after an earthquake rattled the east coast of Russia. What’s the difference between tsunami warning, watch?

The earthquake that struck off the coast of Russia late Tuesday registered 8.8 on the Richter scale and ensuing tsunami has raised concerns that the Pentagon could be caught unawares by a natural disaster in a region where thousands of U.

While emergency sirens warned of an impeding tsunami Tuesday, Hurricane Iona slipped by the south of the Hawaiian Islands, continuing on a 20-mph westward track away from the islands. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Keli was almost directly south of Hawaiʻi Island as of 5 a.m. this morning, also moving west but at 21 mph.

Tropical Storm Iona, formerly Tropical Depression One-C, has become the first named storm of the season in the Central Pacific. Just before 5 p.m., Iona was located about 960 miles southeast of Honolulu, packing maximum sustained winds of 40 mph.

Hurricane Iona was expected to move westward and does not pose any land threat to the Hawaiian Islands, forecasters said.