A file photo showing an aerial view of South Kuril Islands and coastline in Kamchatka region, Russia.
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A magnitude 8.7 earthquake struck off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday, generating a tsunami of up to 4 meters (13 feet), prompting evacuations and damaging buildings, 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.
A tsunami with a height of 3-4 meters (10-13 feet) 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 U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was shallow at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles), and was centered 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.
The Japan Weather Agency upgraded its warning, saying it expected tsunami waves of up to 3 meters (10 feet) to reach large coastal areas starting around 0100 GMT. The country’s public broadcaster 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 U.S. Tsunami Warning System also issued a warning of “hazardous tsunami waves” within the next three hours along some coasts of Russia, Japan and Hawaii. A tsunami watch was also in effect for the U.S. island territory of Guam and other islands of Micronesia.
An evacuation order for the small town of Severo-Kurilsk, south of the 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 epicenter, 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.