Shallow magnitude 8.8 quake hit near Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula prompting warnings as far away as New Zealand and California
Follow it live: Japan and Pacific brace for tsunami waves
Full report: powerful quake sparks Pacific-wide warnings
An 8.8-magnitude earthquake that hit off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula early Wednesday on Wednesday has sparked tsunami warnings across the Pacific, with alerts issues as far away as New Zealand and California. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves of 1 to 3 metres above tide level were possible along some coastal areas of Hawaii, Chile, Japan, Solomon Islands, Russia and Ecuador.
The earthquake was the strongest in the region since 1952, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences, and struck at a depth of 19.3km (12 miles). It was centred 126km (80 miles) east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city along Russia’s Avacha Bay. Early reports of damage have come from Russia, with Kamchatka’s governor describing the quake in a post on Telegram as “serious and the strongest in decades of tremors”. A kindergarten in the area had been damaged, he said.
