Volcano Erupts In Russia Hours After Powerful 8.7 Magnitude Earthquake

Volcano Erupts In Russia Hours After Powerful 8.7 Magnitude Earthquake

Reuters

Vladivostok : A very powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka coast on Wednesday triggered tsunami warnings as far away as French Polynesia and Chile, and was followed by an eruption of the most active volcano on the peninsula.

The shallow quake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan’s eastern seaboard — devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 - was ordered to evacuate, as were parts of Hawaii.

By the evening, Japan, Hawaii and Russia had downgraded most of their tsunami warnings. But authorities in French Polynesia warned residents of several of the remote Marquesas Islands to move to higher ground and expect waves as high as 2.5 metres (8 feet).

Russian scientists said the quake in Kamchatka was the most powerful to hit the region since 1952.

“It felt like the walls could collapse any moment. The shaking lasted continuously for at least three minutes,” said Yaroslav, 25, in the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

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In Severo-Kurilsk in the northern Kuril Islands, south of Kamchatka, tsunami waves exceeded 3 metres, with the largest up to 5 metres, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

The Klyuchevskoy volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula began erupting later, a geological monitoring service said.

Hawaii recorded waves of up to 1.7 metres while in Japan the largest recorded came to 1.3 metres, officials said. Flights out of Honolulu airport resumed in the evening, the transportation department said.

Waves of nearly half a metre were observed as far away as California, with smaller ones reaching Canada’s province of British Columbia.

In French Polynesia, waves started to hit some islands in the early morning hours of Wednesday. In other parts, wave heights were expected to remain below 30 cm, not requiring evacuation or sheltering. Chile upgraded its tsunami warning to the highest level early for most of its lengthy Pacific coast following a powerful earthquake.

Tsunami alarms sounded in coastal towns across Japan’s Pacific coast and evacuation orders were issued for tens of thousands of people.

Workers evacuated the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, where a meltdown following the 2011 tsunami caused a radioactive disaster, operator TEPCO said.

The quake occurred on what is known as a “megathrust fault” where the denser Pacific Plate is sliding underneath the lighter North American Plate, according to scientists.

The Plate has been on the move, making the Kamchatka Peninsula especially vulnerable to such tremors.

What is the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’

The Ring of Fire is a large tectonic belt that runs along the edges of the Pacific Ocean, touching coastlines in East Asia, the Americas and several Pacific islands. Stretching for around 40,000 kilometres, this zone is home to nearly 75% of the world’s active volcanoes and is the site of about 90% of global earthquakes.