Magnitude 8.8 quake in Russia’s Far East causes tsunami, Japan and Hawaii order evacuations

A magnitude 8.8 earthquake has struck off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, damaging buildings and generating a tsunami of up to 4 meters (13 feet) that has prompted warnings and evacuations stretching across the Pacific Ocean.

Several people are injured in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan’s eastern seaboard — devastated by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in 2011 — is ordered to evacuate.

“Today’s earthquake was serious and the strongest in decades of tremors,” Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov says in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app.

Kamchatka’s geophysical service says on Telegram: “The strongest earthquake since 1952 has just occurred in the Kamchatka seismic zone… Given the scale of the event, strong aftershocks with a magnitude of up to 7.5 should be expected.”

The US Geological Survey says the earthquake was shallow at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles), and was centered 119 km (74 miles) east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city of 165,000.

Japan’s weather agency says it expects tsunami waves of up to 3 meters (10 feet) to reach large coastal areas starting around 0100 GMT.

Tsunami alarms sound in coastal towns across Japan’s Pacific coast, with authorities urging people to seek higher ground.