Buildings and landmarks have been shaken and residents fled into streets outside of their homes as a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck Russia’s eastern Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky region and sparked tsunami warnings for parts of the United States.
The quake hit 128 kilometres east of the Kamchatka Peninsula, located north-east of Japan, at a depth of 10 kilometres, an alert from the US Geological Survey said on Friday.
Videos posted on Russian social media showed furniture and light fixtures shaking in homes, and also a parked car rocking back and forth on a street.
A suburban camera feed over the town of Severo-Kurilsk, on the island of Sakhalin and south of the peninsula, showed street lights and homes shaking during the quake.
At the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky International Airport, online video showed travellers walking through a terminal building while check-in counters and television screens were rocked.
A Telegram account for the Kamchatka region also reported that panicked residents ran outside of their homes during the quake.
Several tsunami warnings were issued after the quake by the US National Weather Service (NOAA), which estimated that tsunami waves could be possible for coastlines located within 1,000km of the quake epicentre.
The coast in Russia’s Sakhalin Region, seen in July, was hit by tsunami waves after an earthquake earlier this year. (Reuters: Supplied / Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences)
The agency said waves of up to three metres above a standard tide level were possible along some Russian coastlines.
The NOAA alerts reported potential tsunami threats for the Aleutian Islands and the Amchitka Pass — located across the northern Pacific Ocean in Alaska.
After an hour of initial assessments in Honolulu, authorities in Hawaii determined there was no threat of “destructive Pacific-wide tsunami” waves. The NOAA reported no threat of hazardous waves in American Samoa, Guam, Rota or Saipan.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency also reported “slight sea level changes” in a tsunami forecast region that stretched from eastern Hokkaido, in the country’s north, south to the Ogasawara Islands located east of Taiwan.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) also issued alerts for at least five other aftershock tremors that struck off the Kamchatka Peninsula, ranging in magnitude from 5.1 to 5.8 within 40 minutes of the initial quake.
The local branch of Russia’s state geophysical service gave a lower estimated magnitude of 7.4. It also reported at least five aftershocks.
Vladimir Solodov, the governor of the Kamchatka region, confirmed a tsunami warning had been issued for the area and said residents were being warned of the danger, but there had been no reports of damage.
“This morning is once again testing the resilience of Kamchatka residents,” Mr Solodov said.
“I ask everyone to remain calm … A tsunami warning has been issued for the east coast of the peninsula. The public is being alerted.”
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The Kamchatka peninsula lies on a tectonic belt known as the Ring of Fire, which surrounds most of the Pacific Ocean, and is a hotspot for seismic activity.
Adam Pascale, the chief scientist at the Seismology Research Centre, told ABC News Breakfast that aftershocks in the region could continue for years.
“It’s a similar sort of depth to the one we had about seven weeks ago. That was the sixth-largest earthquake we’d ever recorded in history at an 8.8 and this is a 7.8, which is an aftershock of that sequence,” Mr Pascale said.
“There’ve been continuous ones since that 8.8, so there’s been magnitude-6s almost every day.
“The plates are building up stress as they’re being pushed around on the surface, so as that builds up and then breaks, it needs to settle back into a regime where it can start building up that stress again.
“Usually you’ll see an intense period for some weeks or months and then it will drop off slowly after that.”
The alerts come after the Russian peninsula was struck by a magnitude-8.8 earthquake in July that also sparked tsunami warnings and evacuations as far away as Japan and Hawaii.
Reuters/AFP
