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Volcano Eruption Adds To Chaos After 8.8-Magnitude Quake Rocks Russia’s Far East
Following a strong earthquake in the Pacific on Wednesday, the Klyuchevskoy volcano in Russia erupted on the Kamchatka peninsula.
Hours after a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake shook the area and caused tsunami waves in the Pacific, scientists reported the “descent of burning hot lava” down the slopes of one of the most active volcanoes in the world.
Klyuchevskoy sits about 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital, and has erupted multiple times in recent years.
The Russian Academy of Sciences’ United Geophysical Service confirmed the eruption, stating on Telegram: “A descent of burning hot lava is observed on the western slope. Powerful glow above the volcano, explosions.”
There were no confirmed fatalities from Wednesday’s 8.8-magnitude earthquake off Kamchatka, which destroyed houses and injured a number of people in the isolated Russian territory.
Authorities in Hawaii, Japan, and several regions of Russia have downgraded their tsunami warnings, suggesting that the threat is already decreasing in some areas.
While frothy, white waves poured up on the shore in northern Japan, residents fled inland as ports flooded on Kamchatka, close to the epicentre of the earthquake. Highways and streets in Honolulu were congested with cars, and even in places that were not near the shore, traffic was at a standstill.
Reminiscent of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that resulted in reactor meltdowns at a nuclear power plant, people hurried to evacuation centres in impacted parts of Japan. On Wednesday, there were no recorded anomalies in the nuclear plants in Japan.
On the northern island of Hokkaido in Japan, Kamchatka recorded a tsunami height of 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet), while San Francisco experienced waves that were between 2 and 5 feet high early on Wednesday, according to officials.
A tsunami warning was in effect for a large portion of the West Coast, including California, Oregon, Washington state, and the Canadian province of British Columbia.
As Wednesday started, evacuation orders had been removed for the Big Island and the most populous island, Oahu, but Hawaii remained under a tsunami advisory.
The impact of the tsunami could last for hours or perhaps more than a day, said “Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator with the National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska.”
A tsunami is not just one wave,” he said. “It’s a series of powerful waves over a long period of time. Tsunamis cross the ocean at hundreds of miles an hour — as fast as a jet airplane — in deep water. But when they get close to the shore, they slow down and start to pile up. And that’s where that inundation problem becomes a little bit more possible there.”
Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka Branch of the Geophysical Service, said on Telegram: “Aftershocks are currently ongoing. Their intensity will remain fairly high. However, stronger tremors are not expected in the near future.”
There have been no reports of significant damage or serious injuries, and the degree of danger already seems to be decreasing in several areas. While authorities on the Kamchatka peninsula discontinued their tsunami warning, warnings in other parts of Japan were downgraded.
However, Chile is currently evacuating hundreds of people after upgrading its warning to the highest level for the majority of its Pacific coast.
Waves began to impact several of the remote Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia early on Wednesday, prompting authorities to advise people to evacuate to higher ground and prepare for waves as high as 2.5 meters (8 feet).
On Wednesday, authorities in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands also issued an order for residents in vulnerable coastal areas to evacuate as a precaution.
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