VLADIVOSTOK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th March, 2020) A magnitude 7.6 earthquake occurred some 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the Russian Far Eastern city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the Kamchatka office of the Geophysical Service of the Russian academy of Sciences said.
"Earthquake 14:49 (02:49 a.m. GMT), max magnitude 7.6, total of 463 kilometers from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The data will be specified," it said.
No casualties or destruction have been reported by regional emergencies services.
There is a risk of tsunami in the North Kuril area after the earthquake, the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk seismological station's head, Yelena Semenova, told Sputnik.
The authorities said residents were being evacuated on the Kuril island of Paramushir due to the tsunami threat.
Later in the day, the the department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry in Sakhalin island region said that the height of a tsunami wave in Severo-Kurilsk town was 50 centimeters (1.6 feet).
"The tsunami wave with the height of 50 centimeters hit Severo-Kurilsk at 03:15 p.m. local time [04:15 GMT]. There were no preliminary reports about injuries or damage. The threat of tsunami remains, that is why residents of Severo-Kurilsk will stay in a safe area on a hill. Experts will make a decision to cancel the alert after the low tide begins," the statement said.
Kamchatka is located in a seismically active zone known as the Ring of Fire and regularly suffers from earthquakes. The eastern coast of the peninsula lies along the border of three tectonic plates - Okhotsk, Pacific and North American ones - with the latter two moving toward the first one, which increases the seismic activity in the region.
