A magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, damaging buildings and generating a tsunami of up to 4 meters (13 feet). Warnings and evacuations stretched across the Pacific Ocean, with several people injured in the remote Russian region. Much of Japan’s eastern seaboard, devastated by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in 2011, was ordered to evacuate. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the earthquake was shallow at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles) and was centered 119 km (74 miles) east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of 165,000.
Japan’s weather agency upgraded its warning, saying it expected tsunami waves of up to 3 meters (10 feet) to reach large coastal areas starting around 0100 GMT. Tsunami alarms sounded in coastal towns across Japan’s Pacific coast, with authorities urging people to seek higher ground. The U.S. Tsunami Warning System issued a warning of “hazardous tsunami waves” within the next three hours, with waves reaching more than 3 meters possible along some coasts of Russia and Ecuador, while waves of 1-3 meters were possible in Japan, Hawaii, Chile, and the Solomon Islands. Smaller waves were possible along coastlines across much of the Pacific, including the U.S. West Coast.
Kamchatka and Russia’s Far East sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active region prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The Russian Academy of Sciences said it was the strongest quake to hit the region since 1952. Aftershocks are currently ongoing, with their intensity remaining fairly high, but stronger tremors are not expected in the near future.
