A series of powerful earthquakes struck off the coast of Russia’s Far East on Sunday, triggering a tsunami alert, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
Earlier 5.0-magnitude and 6.7-magnitude earthquakes did not initially trigger a tsunami alert, but were followed by a 7.4-magnitude quake at 08:49 GMT, prompting the USGS to warn that “hazardous tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts.”
The USGS said it expected waves of between 30 centimeters and one meter (up to 3.3 feet) on Russian coasts, and less than 30 centimeters (one foot) in Japan and the U.S. state of Hawaii.
The epicenter of the quakes was in the Pacific Ocean, around 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, it said.
The initial earthquakes were followed by several aftershocks, including another 6.7-magnitude quake, said USGS.
Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry wrote on Telegram that it expected waves of up to 60 centimeters in the Commander Islands in the southwestern part of the Bering Sea and waves of 15 to 40 centimeters in the Kamchatka peninsula.
The peninsula is the meeting point of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, making it a seismic hot zone.
Since 1900, seven major earthquakes of magnitude 8.3 or higher have struck the area.
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