A magnitude 8.7 earthquake struck off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday (July 30), generating a tsunami of up to four metres, damaging buildings and prompting evacuation warnings in the area and across most of Japan’s east coast, officials said.
“Today’s earthquake was serious and the strongest in decades of tremors,” Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app, adding that a kindergarten was damaged.
A tsunami with a height of 3-4 metres was recorded in parts of Kamchatka, Sergei Lebedev, regional minister for emergency situations said, urging people to move away from the shoreline of the peninsula.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake was shallow at a depth of 19.3km, and was centred 126km east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of 165,000 along the coast of Avacha Bay. It revised the magnitude up from 8.0 earlier.
The Japan Weather Agency upgraded its warning, saying it expected tsunami waves of up to three metres to reach large coastal areas starting around 0100 GMT (9am in Singapore time). Broadcast NHK said evacuation orders had been issued by the government for some areas.
Factory workers and residents in Japan’s northern Hokkaido evacuated to a hill overlooking the ocean, footage from broadcaster TBS showed.
“Please evacuate quickly. If you can move quickly to higher ground and away from the coast,” a newscaster on Japanese public broadcaster NHK said.
The US Tsunami Warning System also issued a warning of “hazardous tsunami waves” within the next three hours along some coasts of Russia, Japan, Alaska and Hawaii. A tsunami watch was also in effect for the US island territory of Guam and other islands of Micronesia.
Hawaii ordered evacuations from some coastal areas. “Take Action! Destructive tsunami waves expected,” the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management said on X.
An evacuation order for the small town of Severo-Kurilsk, south of the Kamchatka peninsula, was declared due to the tsunami threat, Sakhalin Governor Valery Limarenko said on Telegram.
Several people sought medical assistance following the quake, Oleg Melnikov, regional health minister told Russia’s TASS state news agency.
“Unfortunately, there are some people injured during the seismic event. Some were hurt while running outside, and one patient jumped out of a window. A woman was also injured inside the new airport terminal,” Melnikov said.
“All patients are currently in satisfactory condition, and no serious injuries have been reported so far.”
The Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences said it was a very powerful earthquake.
“However, due to certain characteristics of the epicentre, the shaking intensity was not as high… as one might expect from such a magnitude,” it said in a video on Telegram.
“Aftershocks are currently ongoing… Their intensity will remain fairly high. However, stronger tremors are not expected in the near future. The situation is under control.”
Kamchatka and Russia’s Far East sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active region that is prone to major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
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