8.8 magnitude earthquake caused giant waves and alerts in almost every country in the Pacific Ocean
“Our factory is sinking under the water!” An Severo-Kurilsk resident exclaimed in tears as he watched the waves that flooded the port of this Russian city located north of the Curilla islands after a powerful earthquake. From a hill, this woman observes the submerged building of the Alaid seafood processing factory and the containers floating freely, in a video broadcast on Zvezda television channel. “Four waves of tsunami” reached Severo-Kurilsk on Wednesday (30), when the water reached a coastal area 200 meters from the margin, according to the mayor of the Northern Curillas District, Aleksandr Ovsiannikov.
An earthquake of magnitude 8.8, the most powerful in the region in almost 73 years, shook areas near the Russian Peninsula of Kamchatka, causing Tsunamis on Wednesday to and in Japan, and alerts in almost every Pacific countries. “Each of you felt these tremors, each of you understood how serious the situation was,” said Ovsiannikov in video about 2,500 evacuated inhabitants for a safe area.
“The earthquake was very strong, in many apartments the furniture fell, the dishes broke,” said by phone to the state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta a resident of Severo-Kurilsk, Oleg Stuchinski, ensuring that “most people remain calm.” “There is no panic,” says another resident, Sergey Lakomov, stating that only tourists and those who have young children change. Local news site Astv.ru released images of the Severo-Kurilsk deserted streets after evacuation, where an alarm was still heard.
According to the geological service of (USGS), the earthquake took place on Tuesday around 11:24 pm GMT (8:24 pm GMT) at a depth of 20.7 km, 126 km from Petropávlovsk in Kamchatka at the Far East Russian. This magnitude has been the highest recorded in Kamchatka since November 5, 1952, when a magnitude 9 earthquake practically in the same place triggered devastating tsunamis throughout the Pacific Ocean. Kamchatka’s seismological service warned that replicas with magnitudes of up to 7.5 are expected.
*With information from AFP
