A powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake has struck the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia, triggering a 4-meter tsunami. Hundreds of evacuation orders have been issued across the Pacific.
The shallow quake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan's east coast - devastated by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 - was ordered to evacuate.
In Hawaii, coastal residents were told to seek higher ground or the fourth floor or higher of buildings, and the U.S. Coast Guard ordered ships to leave ports as the tsunami approached. "Take precautions! Destructive tsunami waves are expected," the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management said on X. Tsunami waves reaching 5 meters hit parts of Kamchatka, partially flooding the port and a fish processing plant in the city of Severo-Kurilsk and carrying ships from their berths, regional officials and Russia's Emergencies Ministry said.
"Today's earthquake was serious and the strongest in decades with tremors," Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app. Russia's Emergency Services Ministry said on Telegram that a kindergarten was damaged, but most of the buildings withstood the quake. No serious injuries or fatalities were reported.
The US Geological Survey said the quake was shallow at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles) and its epicentre was 119 km east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of 165,000 people.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska issued a tsunami warning for Alaska and parts of the U.S. West Coast, including Hawaii. Philippine authorities also warned of possible small tsunami waves.
The earthquake occurred within the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire." This is a chain of seismically and geologically active regions surrounding the Pacific Ocean, where many of the world's largest earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis occur. It stretches along a horseshoe-shaped area that winds from New Zealand through parts of Southeast Asia, Japan and Alaska to the west coast of North and South America. (A2 Televizion)
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