Countries remain under tsunami alert and volcano erupts
Tsunami alerts remain in some countries after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck off Russia’s far eastern coast on Wednesday.
Source: Kamchatka region health ministry
Tsunami alerts remain in some countries in South America and the Pacific on Thursday (AEST) after one of the largest recorded earthquakes struck off Russia’s far eastern coast.
Chile raised its tsunami warning to the highest level and ordered evacuations along its western coast and Easter Island, while Ecuador urged people on Galápagos Islands to head to higher ground.
Tsunami alerts also remained in effect in Peru and Colombia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
In other parts of the world, warnings that affected millions of people and triggered panic were scaled back or lifted, including for Japan, the US, Russia and the Philippines.
The powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday (AEST) and was followed by an eruption of the region’s most active volcano.
The Klyuchevskoy volcano began erupting later on Wednesday, a geological monitoring service said.
About 450 kilometres north of the regional capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Klyuchevskoy is one of the world’s highest volcanoes.
“A descent of burning hot lava is observed on the western slope. Powerful glow above the volcano, explosions,” the Russian Academy of Sciences’ United Geophysical Service said on Telegram.
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Russia’s Klyuchevskoy volcano, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Photo: AAP
Wednesday’s initial powerful quake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region.
In Severo-Kurilsk, in the northern Kuril Islands, tsunami waves exceeded three metres, with the largest up to five metres, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Tsunami waves partially flooded the port and a fish-processing plant in the town, sweeping vessels from moorings, regional officials and Russia’s emergency ministry said.
Verified drone footage showed the town’s entire shoreline submerged, with taller buildings and some storage facilities surrounded by water.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been no casualties in Russia, crediting solid building construction and the smooth operation of alert systems.
The tsunami aftermath in the town of Severo-Kurilsk. Photo: Sakhalin regional administration
People on much of Japan’s eastern seaboard — which was devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 — were ordered to leave, as were residents in parts of Hawaii.
Authorities in French Polynesia urged residents to remain cautious, but lifted a tsunami alert in the Marquesas Islands, saying people could return to their homes.
Tsunami waves began hitting early on Wednesday but were smaller than initially feared, authorities said.
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The French High Commission in French Polynesia said wave heights had reached 1.5 metres, down from an earlier forecast of up to four metres.
Additional smaller waves were expected in coming hours, officials said.
Elsewhere in French Polynesia, wave heights were expected to remain below 30 centimetres, not requiring people to flee or shelter.
Flooding in Severo-Kurilsk, on Russia’s Kuril islands. Photo: Sakhalin regional administration
The US Geological Survey said the major earthquake was shallow, at a depth of 19.3 kilometres, and centred 119 kilometres east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of 165,000.
“It felt like the walls could collapse any moment. The shaking lasted continuously for at least three minutes,” said Yaroslav, 25, in the city.
A quake of magnitude 6.07 later struck the Kuril Islands, which lie between Kamchatka and northern Japan, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said.
Hawaii had waves of up to 1.7 metres while in Japan the largest was 1.3 metres, officials said.
Flights out of Honolulu airport resumed later in the day, the state transportation department said.
Waves of nearly half a metre were observed in California, with smaller ones reaching Canada’s province of British Columbia.
But a tsunami advisory was cancelled for coastal British Columbia, as well as coastal areas of south Alaska.
Kamchatka and Russia’s far east sit on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active region that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
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 Pacific Plate has been on the move, making the Kamchatka Peninsula off Russia’s far east coast especially vulnerable, and bigger aftershocks could not be ruled out, they said.
Video footage from the region’s health ministry showed a team of medics in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky performing surgery as the quake shook their operating theatre.
The medics used their hands to try to steady both the patient and their equipment, CCTV footage released by the Kamchatka region’s health ministry showed.
-with AAP/DPA
