A tsunami warning stretching across swaths of the West Coast has been lifted after sparking panic and prompting evacuations.

The official warning — the National Weather Service’s most severe advisory — was issued after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook off the coast of Northern California, near the city of Eureka, at 10:44 a.m. local time Thursday.

At least 5.3 million people in California were under the warning, which covered over 500 miles of coastline from Oregon to the San Francisco Bay Area. Many were urged to evacuate or move to higher ground on short notice over fears that a dangerous surge of water would strike just after noon local time. 

Sirens wailed across several counties, phones lit up with warnings, beaches were cleared, students were let out of school, the train tunnel connecting San Francisco to Oakland was shut down, and residents hastened to the roadways.

But just before the wave was supposed to strike, officials lifted the warning, allowing Californians to breathe a sigh of relief.

“It was a strong quake, our building shook, we’re fine but I have a mess to clean up right now,” said Julie Kreitzer, who owns a market near the quake’s epicenter in the heart of the warning zone.

Her building was undamaged — none have been reported severely affected so far — but its interior was trashed by the shaking.

“We lost a lot of stuff. It’s probably worse than two years ago. I have to go, I have to try and salvage something for the holidays because it’s going to be a tough year,” she said.

The shocks were felt as far south as San Francisco, where they continued for several seconds.

At a middle school near the epicenter in Eureka, lights swayed overhead and students sheltered under their desks.

“The kids were so great and terrified. It seemed to go back and forth for quite a long time,” said Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel, who also works at the middle school.

Not everybody heeded the warnings, however.

In Pacifica — just south of San Francisco — some surfers were spotted flouting advisories and recklessly heading straight for the coastline. They stood watching the waves as friends snapped photos of the scene.

Aftershocks continue to be felt across the region, which is a normal occurrence whenever earthquakes strike.

The Golden State caught a lucky break with this quake — events that register 7.0 and up on the Richter scale are considered especially dangerous.

San Francisco’s devastating 1906 quake, which killed 3,000, clocked in at 7.9.

Seismology experts have been cautioning for years that California — which is bisected by the volatile San Andreas Fault Line — is overdue for “the big one,” a quake which could bring about devastation similar to the 1906 disaster.

With Post wires