HONOLULU – With a rapt world watching the drama unfold on live television, a tsunami raced across a quarter of the globe on Saturday and set off fears of a repeat of the carnage that caught the world off guard in Asia in 2004.

Japan was still bracing for the prospect of large waves, but the tsunami delivered nothing more than a glancing blow to the U.S. and South Pacific.

The tsunami was spawned by a ferocious magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile that sent waves barreling north across the Pacific at the speed of a jetliner. But Pacific islands had ample time to prepare for the tsunami because the quake struck several thousand miles away.

By the time the tsunami hit Hawaii — a full 16 hours after the quake — officials had already spent the morning ringing emergency sirens, blaring warnings from airplanes and ordering residents to higher ground.

The islands were back to paradise by the afternoon, but residents endured a severe disruption and scare earlier in the day: Picturesque beaches were desolate, million-dollar homes were evacuated, shops in Waikiki were shut down, and residents lined up at supermarkets to stock up on food and at gas stations.

Others parked their cars along higher ground to watch the ocean turbulence, and one brave soul stayed behind and surfed before being urged by an emergency helicopter pilot to get out of the water.

There were no immediate reports of widespread damage, injuries or deaths in the U.S. or in the Pacific islands, but a tsunami that swamped a village on an island off Chile killed at least five people and left 11 missing.

Waves hit California, but barely registered amid stormy weather and a surfing contest outside San Diego went on as planned. Despite reports of significant problems in coastal areas of California, no injuries or major property damage occurred.

It was still possible that the tsunami would gain strength again as it heads to Japan, and nearly 50 countries and island chains remained under tsunami warnings from Antarctica to Russia. But scientists said the worst threat had passed.

“We dodged a bullet,” said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.

The tsunami raised fears that the Pacific could fall victim to the type of killer waves that killed 230,000 people in the Indian Ocean in 2004 the morning after Christmas. During that disaster, there was little to no warning and much confusion about the impending waves.

Officials said the opposite occurred after the Chile quake: They overstated their predictions for the size of the waves and the threat.

“We expected the waves to be bigger in Hawaii, maybe about 50 percent bigger than they actually were,” Fryer said. “We’ll be looking at that.”

The Navy moved more than a half dozen vessels to try to avoid damage from the tsunami. A frigate, three destroyers and two smaller vessels were being sent out of Pearl Harbor and a cruiser out of Naval Base San Diego, the Navy said.

The tsunami caused a series of surges in Hawaii that were about 20 minutes apart, and the waves arrived later and smaller than originally predicted. The highest wave at Hilo measured 5.5 feet (1.7 meters) high, while Maui saw some as high as 2 meters (6.5 feet).

Water began pulling away from shore off Hilo Bay on the Big Island just before noon, exposing reefs and sending dark streaks of muddy, sandy water offshore. Waves later washed over Coconut Island, a small park off Hilo’s coast.

“We’ve checked with each county. There was no assessment of any damage in any county, which was quite remarkable,” said Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle. “It’s just wonderful that nothing happened and no one was hurt or injured.”

Officials in Tonga and the Samoas evacuated coastal residents and used radio, television and mobile phone text messages to alert residents.

On the island of Robinson Crusoe near Chile, a huge tsunami wave flooded the village of San Juan Batista, killing at least five people and leaving 11 missing, said Guillermo de la Masa, head of the government emergency bureau for the Valparaiso region.

He said the huge waves also damaged several government buildings on the island.

Sea surges hit 6 1/2 feet at several places in New Zeland. Waters at Tutukaka, a coastal dive spot near the top of the North Island, looked like a pot boiling with the muddy bottom churning up as sea surges built in size through the morning, sucking sea levels below low water marks before surging back.

A nude photo shoot involving scores of people scheduled for the coastline near the capital, Wellington, was canceled by the tsunami threat before any of the volunteers could strip.

Australia warned of the possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and flooding from Queensland state in the north to Tasmania in the south. No evacuations were ordered.

Past South American earthquakes have had deadly effects across the Pacific.

A tsunami after a magnitude-9.5 quake that struck Chile in 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded, killed about 140 people in Japan, 61 in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines. It was about 3.3 to 13 feet (one to four meters) in height, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.

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Associated Press writers Jaymes Song and Greg Small in Honolulu, Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Chris Havlik in Phoenix, Ray Lilley in Wellington, New Zealand, Eric Talmadge in Tokyo, Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Tiphaine Issele in Papette, French Polynesia, Pauline Jelinek in Washington and Charmaine Noronha in Toronto contributed to this report.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Employees wept and audience members grew silent Saturday at SeaWorld as the theme park’s popular killer whale show resumed with a photo montage memorial for a trainer who was killed by one of the orcas in front of horrified spectators three days ago.

The show had been shut down since veteran trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, died Wednesday after rubbing a 22-foot, 12,000-pound orca named Tilikum. The animal grabbed her ponytail and pulled her into the water in front of about 20 spectators. The medical examiner says she likely died of traumatic injuries and drowning.

More than 2,000 people packed the park’s stadium Saturday for the first show since Brancheau’s death.

The audience seemed thrilled, applauding and cheering as the whales zipped around their tank and splashed spectators during the show — with the theme of “believe,” about a young boy who sees an orca and dreams of one day becoming a whale trainer. It was a fitting tribute to Brancheau, whose family said she always wanted work with the giant whales.

At one point during the show, a young girl was brought on stage and given a whale tail necklace.

“I just wanted to be here for this show. It’s so special,” said Russell Thomphsen, 65, who said he is a season-ticket holder for SeaWorld. “This touches so many lives.”

Spectators packed the enormous outdoor amphitheater despite chilly, rainy weather, with the orca pool registering at 52 degrees. The whale trainers received a standing ovation as they approached the platform before the show, part of the multimillion-dollar enterprise centered around “Shamu” — the stage name given to all the performing orcas.

Several SeaWorld employees wept as the photo montage set to music was shown.

“It was very moving,” said Molly Geislinger, 33, who came from Minneapolis with her husband and 21-month-old child.

However, she noticed a difference in how the trainers acted.

“They looked like they were being very careful,” she said. “They looked very cautious today.”

Indeed, the trainers weren’t allowed in the water, meaning the whales’ handlers did not surf on top of the marine mammals or fly into the air. Instead, the trainers — wearing orca-like black-and-white wetsuits — directed the whales from outside the huge tank’s acrylic walls. They coached the creatures to splash the front-and-center rows a few times, much to the delight of onlookers.

SeaWorld officials have said trainers won’t swim with the orcas until they finish reviewing what happened to Brancheau.

Jeff Steward, who came to the show with his wife, called the memorial “a very emotional start.”

He said they enjoyed the show, adding: “It’s a tragedy, but these things happen when you’re dealing with wild animals.”

SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment President Jim Atchison said Friday that Tilikum will remain an “active, contributing member of the team,” in part because the killer whale show is big business at SeaWorld. The company owns more killer whales than anyone else in the world and builds the orca image into its multimillion-dollar brand. Tilikum did not perform Saturday.

The timing of the killer whales’ return to performances reflects just what the sleek black-and-white mammals mean to SeaWorld, which the private equity firm The Blackstone Group bought last fall for around $2.7 billion from Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal that included two Busch Gardens theme parks and several other attractions.

There are two other SeaWorld parks — one in San Antonio, and one in San Diego.

No animal is more valuable to that operation than Tilikum, the largest orca in captivity. Captured nearly 30 years ago off Iceland, Tilikum has grown into the alpha male of captive killer whales, his value as a stud impossible to pin down. He now has been involved in the deaths of two trainers and requires a special set of handling rules, which Atchison wouldn’t specify.

John Galloway, of Palm Coast, Fla., said he didn’t want to see the killer whale shows end because of the tragedy.

“I think they know what they’re doing,” he said of the trainers. “Me, myself, I wouldn’t be down there doing that.”

ORLANDO, Fla. – SeaWorld will restart its killer whale shows this weekend after Tilikum, the largest orca in captivity, dragged a trainer to her death in the water at the Orlando park.

SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment President Jim Atchison said Friday trainers won’t get in the water with the killer whales for now until officials finish reviewing what happened to veteran trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40.

“We will make improvements and changes and we will move forward,” Atchison said as killer whales swam in a tank behind him during a news conference at the Florida park, one of three SeaWorld locations. The others are in San Antonio and San Diego.

The trainer was dragged into the water Wednesday by Tilikum. The medical examiner says she likely died of traumatic injuries and drowning.

Atchison says Tilikum will remain an “active, contributing member of the team” at SeaWorld.

Atchison says whale shows will resume Saturday. He says he’s not sure how long it will be before trainers are allowed to get back in the water with the animals.

Tilikum is the only killer whale in the SeaWorld chain that the park has special handling rules for, Atchison said. The 22-foot, 12,000-pound male was involved in two earlier deaths at SeaWorld and a park in British Columbia.

Atchison wouldn’t speak to specific protocols or whether any had been violated, saying it’s too soon to come to any conclusions.

“It’s far too early to get to that point,” he said. He added, “We are evaluating every policy, every procedure we have.”

The issue of protocols was raised by the former head of animal training at SeaWorld, Thad Lacinak, who said earlier Friday that the rules in place when he left the park in 2008 would not have allowed Brancheau to lie down on a submerged shelf next to the whale, where the animal was able to grab her ponytail.

“She laid completely down, which is a very vulnerable position to be in with an animal like Tilikum. And apparently her ponytail drifted into the water, he just opened his mouth, sucked it in and pulled her in the water,” Lacinak, who left SeaWorld in 2008 after a long career to start a consultancy, told The Associated Press.

Lacinak said he’d been told how the attack happened by other trainers who were at the scene. Based on their description, he said the rules for handling Tilikum that were in place during his tenure had either been broken or changed.

Tilikum was one of three orcas blamed for killing a trainer in 1991 at a theme park near Victoria, British Columbia. In 1999, the body of a naked man was found draped over Tilikum at SeaWorld. Officials said the man had stayed in the park after closing, apparently fell into the whale tank and died of hypothermia, but was also bitten by Tilikum.

Lacinak said Brancheau’s ponytail was merely a “novelty item” to the whale, who was not trained to be in the water with people.

“It was a novel item in the water, and he grabbed hold of it, not necessarily in an aggressive way,” he said.

Lacinak said the whale dragged the trainer into the water in more of a playful, investigative manner. Once the whale had her in the water, it likely became a game.

“It was more novelty, he’s like, ‘Hey look, you’re in the water, I’m going to play with you,’” Lacinak said.

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Associated Press writers Brian Skoloff, Mike Schneider and Tamara Lush reported from Orlando; Lisa Orkin Emmanuel reported from Miami; Noaki Schwartz from Los Angeles; Mitch Weiss from Charlotte, N.C.; and Kelli Kennedy from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Bob Springer from APTN also reported from Orlando.