'Hazardous' tsunami waves feared as massive 7.4 quake strikes Russia’s Kamchatka

A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula on Saturday (Sep 13), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The quake hit 111 km east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital, at a depth of 39.5 km. USGS initially measured it at 7.5 before downgrading it to 7.4.

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'Hazardous' tsunami waves feared

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has warned that "hazardous" waves could impact parts of Russia's coastline within 300 km of the epicentre. In an alert on its website, the tsunami warning center said, “A TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS FOR PARTS OF THE PACIFIC LOCATED CLOSER. TO THE EARTHQUAKE. HOWEVER... BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE DATA…THERE IS NO TSUNAMI THREAT TO HAWAII”. On X, the US Tsunami Warning System said that no tsunami danger exists for any US or Canadian coastline." However, it added that on the Russian coastline, closer to the earthquake, “a tsunami may reach the shore within the next hour”.

Similarly, in Japan, to the southwest of the Kamchatka Peninsula, no tsunami warning has been issued, broadcaster NHK reported, citing the Japan Meteorological Agency.

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Kamchatka, in Russia's Far East, lies on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and is one of the world's most seismically active zones. Just two months ago, in July, an even stronger 8.8-magnitude quake off Kamchatka triggered tsunamis up to four metres high across the Pacific, forcing mass evacuations from Hawaii to Japan. It was the most powerful quake since the 2011 disaster off Japan that killed more than 15,000 people.