A powerful magnitude 8.6 earthquake struck off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday, sparking tsunami warnings, prompting evacuations and causing some damage, 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.
He added that according to preliminary information there were no injuries, but a kindergarten was damaged.
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The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was shallow at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles), and was centred about 125 km (80 miles) 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.
An evacuation order for the small town of Severo-Kurilsk, south of the peninsula, was declared due to the tsunami threat following the earthquake, Sakhalin Governor Valery Limarenko said on Telegram.
The Kamchatka branch of Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Services said on Telegram that a tsunami wave up to 32 cm (1 foot) high may reach the coast.
The Japan Weather Agency said it expected a tsunami of up to 1 metre (3.3 feet) to reach large coastal areas starting around 0100 GMT.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System also issued a warning of “hazardous tsunami waves” within the next three hours along some coasts of Russia and Japan.
A tsunami watch was also in effect for the U.S. island territory of Guam and other islands of Micronesia.
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.
