A tsunami threat has been declared over following three powerful undersea earthquakes, including a magnitude 7.4 tremor, off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on Sunday, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC).
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the quakes — with magnitudes of 7.4, 6.7, and 5.0 struck within 32 minutes of each other, around 140 kilometers east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the capital of Kamchatka, with a population of over 160,000.
The strongest quake occurred at a depth of 20 kilometers. No casualties or damage have been reported as of this writing.
The PTWC initially warned of potentially hazardous tsunami waves in the region but later downgraded and eventually canceled the alert. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry also issued a tsunami warning, advising coastal residents to avoid the shoreline.
A tsunami watch issued for Hawaii was similarly lifted.
Germany’s GFZ monitoring agency initially recorded one of the earthquakes at magnitude 6.7 before updating it to 7.4. Tsunami warnings were issued not only for Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula but also for northern Japan, the Kuril Islands, and Hawaii, though all alerts were later lifted as the threat subsided.
Kamchatka, located at the intersection of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, is one of the world’s most seismically active regions. Since 1900, the area has experienced at least seven earthquakes of magnitude 8.3 or higher.
A magnitude 9.0 quake in the same region in 1952 caused damage and sent 30-foot waves to Hawaii, although no fatalities were recorded.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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