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Tsunami warnings have been across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to the US West Coast after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake hit the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East, according to media reports.
The quake, a ‘shallow’ one, hit at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles). It was centred 126 kilometres (80 miles) east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka coast according to the US Geological Survey.
The earthquake is the strongest in the region since 1952, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences, The Guardian reported. It is also the joint-sixth strongest ever recorded.
The Guardian also quoted Sergei Lebedev, regional minister for emergency situations, as saying that a tsunami with a height of 3 to 4 metres was recorded in parts of Kamchatka. He added that there were reports of several people being injured.
Other countries in the Pacific littoral including Japan, the US West Coast as well as Pacific states and territories like Hawaii and Guam have also sounded tsunami warnings in the wake of the quake.
The first waves are already beginning to strike Japan, The Guardian reported at the time of writing.
The Kamchatka Peninsula lies on the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’. It is a horseshoe-shaped zone about 40,000 km long, characterised by frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to the movement and interaction of tectonic plates.
Some of the world’s most active volcanoes and biggest earthquakes have taken place along this ‘Ring of Fire’ in areas including the Japanese, Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos, besides the islands of the Pacific.
