An 8.8-magnitude megathrust earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula early Wednesday, unleashing tsunami alerts that spanned the entire Pacific Rim. The shock is the strongest recorded anywhere since the 2011 Tōhoku disaster and ranks jointly as the sixth-largest event of the modern instrumental era.
The US Geological Survey pinned the epicentre 119km east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky at a shallow 19km depth, conditions that favour powerful sea floor uplift and long-range wave propagation.
Locally, waves up to 4m inundated the port of Severo-Kurilsk, while structural damage and brief power outages were reported in Kamchatka’s regional capital. Regional officials confirmed only minor injuries as residents evacuated to high ground.
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Japan’s Meteorological Agency warned of tsunami heights reaching 3m along much of the country’s Pacific coast. Roughly 900,000 people were told to evacuate, yet initial run-ups peaked at 0.4m in northern ports. Nuclear facilities, including Fukushima Daiichi, reported no abnormalities after precautionary shutdowns.
Across the ocean, Hawaii sounded sirens and ordered the clearance of all commercial harbours; first arrivals were forecast for 7pm local time with potential 3-metre surges. The US West Coast, from British Columbia to California, shifted from watch to advisory status, urging the public off beaches and out of marinas.
Similar advisories reached Mexico, Central America, and New Zealand, underscoring the basin-wide reach of the event. Emergency managers emphasised that successive waves, separated by minutes to hours, could persist throughout Wednesday.
Geophysicists logged aftershocks up to magnitude 6.9 and warned the sequence could last for weeks. The quake follows a cluster of July tremors topping 7.4 in the same subduction zone.
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