By Isla Storie,Tim Hanlon
Copyright dailyrecord
A huge earthquake has struck eastern Russia, with a tsunami warning now in place for the region. The quake measured a mighty 7.8 on the Richter Scale at a depth of 10km (6.21 miles), hitting the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, near the Kamchatka peninsula. The region is of great importance for Russia, as it houses the Russian Pacific Submarine Fleet and several air bases . The Yelizovo Air Base, is situated in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky itself, with Vilyuchinsk Submarine Base, a significant Pacific Fleet base around 20-30 km away in Vilyuchinsk. Sharomy Air Base, a naval air base, is located about 143 km north of the city. The tsunami warning was issued by the US National Weather Service’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii, with other countries also placed on alert, including Japan, the Mirror reports . Residents of Hawaii have also been warned to prepare, with the impact expected to travel across the Pacific Ocean. Kamchatskiy has a population of 181,000 people, and is located on the Kuril-Kamchatka Arc, which extends over 1,300 miles from Hokkaido, Japan, along the Pacific coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. The largest megathrust earthquake to occur along it in the last 100 years was a 9.0 magnitude quake in November 1954. The latest seismic event is the second in less than a week, according to the US Geological Survey. On Saturday, September 13, one struck the peninsula in the early hours of the morning, measuring a magnitude of 7.4. This came just weeks after an 8.8 magnitude quake in the region, the sixth strongest ever recorded. The USGS recorded its depth as around 39km (24 miles). The huge event resulted in tsunami warnings and evacuations in Russia, Japan and Hawaii, with advisories issued for the Philippines, Indonesia, and as far away as New Zealand and Peru.
