Japanese authorities have activated Tsunami alert after a powerful 8.7 magnitude earthquake recorded in the Russian Peninsula of Kamchatka. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has warned waves up to three meters In several prefectures of the east and the south of the country, so it has issued evacuation orders in areas of Hokkaido, Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Chiba, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Mie and Wakayama.
A tsunami notice, up to one meter, in the Bay of Tokyo, Osaka and the islands of Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa, is also maintained. The earthquake has also generated a transoceanic alert, with active notices in Hawaii, parts of Alaska and other Pacific Islands.
The tremor has occurred at 8:25 local time (23:25 GMT on Tuesday), off the southern coast of the Russian Peninsula of Kamchatka, and its initial magnitude of 8 has been reviewed up to 8.7 by both the JMA and by the US Geological Service (USGS). According to the latter, the epicenter has placed about 125 kilometers southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of about 165,000 inhabitants, located only 18 kilometers deep, which amplifies its destructive potential.
“It has been the strongest earthquake in decades of seismic activity,” Kamchatka, Vladimir Solodov, said through Telegram. Despite the violence of the earthquake, Russian authorities have not confirmed victimsalthough there have been material damage, including in a nursery. The Regional Emergency Minister, Serguéi Lébedev, has reported a tsunami with waves between 3 and 4 meters in various points of the Russian Costa and has asked the population to immediately move away from the coast.
Alert in the Pacific: evacuations in Japan and Hawaii
In Japan, the impact of the earthquake has been much milder. The earthquake has barely touched level 2 on the Japanese seismic scale (focused on measuring superficial agitation) of several cities in southeast of Hokkaido, such as Kushiro, Akkeshi, Shibetsu or Betsukai. Even so, the government has activated an emergency operation in the office of the Japanese Prime Minister, the Kantei, to follow the minute by minute evolution, according to Yoshimasa Hayashi spokesman.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of the United States (NOAA) has issued a tsunami alert for Hawaii and Alaska parts, while the Pacific Tsunamis warning system has warned the risk of “dangerous waves” in the next few hours in Japan, Russia and the US coast. Preventive alerts in Guam and several micronsia islands have also been activated.
Russia, Japan and much of the Pacific Basin are found in the so -called Fire Ring, one of the areas of greatest seismic and volcanic activity on the planet. The earthquake on Wednesday, one of the most intense recorded in recent years in the region, has tested the alert and evacuation systems of multiple countries.
