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DTE Staff
Earlier in July, five powerful quakes — the largest with a magnitude of 7.4 — struck in the sea near Kamchatka. The largest quake was at a depth of 20 kilometres and was 144 kilometres (89 miles) east of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
The 1952 earthquake hit the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It triggered a tsunami that hit Severo-Kurilsk, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian SFSR (of erstwhile USSR).
The Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences has confirmed that the July 30 quake is the severest since the 9.0 M earthquake of November 5, 1952 that hit the province.
The 2025 Russia earthquake is not just the strongest since 2011 to hit the world. It is also the strongest to hit the Kamchatka Peninsula since 1952.
According to Russian emergency ministry, "Tsunami waves have flooded part of the Russian port town of Severo-Kurilsk."
The Biobío earthquake killed 523 people and destroyed 370,000 homes. The Ecuador earthquake triggered a tsunami killing 1,500 people and affected far away San Francisco.
On its website posting of the 10 largest earthquakes by the US agency, the Russia one compares with the 2010 earthquake in Biobío, Chile, and the 1906 earthquake in Esmeraldas, Ecuador.
The 2025 earthquake in Kamchatka is the sixth severest in recorded history: US Geological Survey