Earthquake Off Kamchatka Peninsula; Tsunami Warning Generated

Moscow: A Tsunami warning was generated after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on Saturday.

The massive quake occurred 111 kilometres (69 miles) east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the administrative centre of the Kamchatka region, at a depth of 39.5 kilometres, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre warned that “hazardous” waves could affect Russian coasts within 300 kilometres of the epicentre. The USGS initially reported the quake as magnitude 7.5, but later downgraded it.

In July, one of the strongest earthquakes on record struck off the Kamchatka Peninsula, generating tsunamis up to four metres (12 feet) high across the Pacific and prompting evacuations from Hawaii to Japan.

The July earthquake was of 8.8 magnitude and the largest since 2011. In 2011, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake off Japan triggered a tsunami, killing over 15,000 people.

That quake led Japanese authorities to order nearly two million residents to move to higher ground, while tsunami warnings across the region were subsequently downgraded or cancelled.

The worst earthquake in recent history was the 9.3 magnitude one off the Indonesian coast in 2004 that triggered tsunami waves up to 100 feet high. As many as 2,27,898 people were killed across 14 countries.