One of the strongest earthquakes to hit Russia’s Far East in more than 70 years shook the Kamchatka Peninsula, sending tsunami waves across the Pacific and forcing shoreline evacuations from Japan to California. The magnitude 8.8 quake struck at 11:17 am local time about 130 kilometres southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, at a depth of roughly 19 kilometres, according to the US Geological Survey. It was the region’s most powerful earthquake since 1952 and among the largest ever recorded on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” A second earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 struck 143 km east-southeast of Severo-Kuril’sk, Russia, according to the US Geological Survey.The Klyuchevskoy volcano erupted after the earthquake, sending rivers of lava down its western side and lighting the sky with blasts. Scientists, who had warned the crater was filling, say the 4,750 metre peak, last active in 2023, is the northern hemisphere’s largest active volcano..OLDCORN: Looney Tunes Rachel Gilmore rails against Conservative MPs defending Christian artist Sean Feucht.In Kamchatka, waves estimated at 10 to 15 metres crashed into docks and swept fishing boats inland. Video from Severo-Kurilsk, a town in the Kuril Islands, showed warehouses and apartment buildings engulfed in churning water before the water receded. .Officials said several residents were hurt while scrambling uphill, and some communities lost electricity. .Japan issued tsunami warnings for its northern areas and urged nearly two million people to head to shelters. The tallest wave there was about 60 centimetres, but rail lines and nuclear plants were briefly shut down as a precaution. Across the ocean, Hawaii recorded a surge of roughly 1.2 metres at Hilo and closed beaches for much of the day. .Smaller swells reached British Columbia, Washington, and California, where police warned sightseers to stay off piers. .Alerts in North America and Japan were downgraded to advisories, though experts said strong aftershocks could produce new waves. Russian emergency crews reported cracked roads, damaged port cranes, and flooding at Yelizovo Airport but no deaths. .Ontario Human Rights Tribunal dismissed Jessica Yaniv’s complaint against Canada Galaxy Pageants.Governor Vladimir Solodov called the event “the strongest in decades” and promised swift repairs. Seismologists said the quake ruptured a section of the Kuril-Kamchatka trench, the same undersea fault that produced a devastating tsunami in 1952, and urged residents around the North Pacific to keep emergency kits close as tremors continue.
