Strong tremors hit Kamchatka, epicentre near Severo-Kurilsk

A powerful earthquake struck Russia’s Kamchatka region on Friday, August 22, according to the Kamchatka branch of the Federal Research Centre of the Unified Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which reported the incident on its Telegram channel.

The tremors were recorded at 9:37 a.m. local time and measured 5.3 in magnitude, a level seismologists classify as a strong quake. The epicentre was located approximately 96 kilometres from the city of Severo-Kurilsk, home to nearly 2,500 residents, where the shaking reached a magnitude of 3–4 on the Richter scale. Authorities have not yet provided information on the depth of the earthquake or on possible casualties or damage.

This latest quake comes just weeks after the region was hit by a much stronger seismic event. On July 30, Kamchatka experienced its most powerful earthquake since 1952 — a magnitude 8.7 quake with an epicentre 360 kilometres northeast of Severo-Kurilsk in the Pacific Ocean, at a depth of 17 kilometres.

The July earthquake was felt intensely in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, where tremors registered at 7–8 on the Richter scale, and moderately in the Sakhalin region, at 5–6. The resulting tsunami affected not only Kamchatka and Sakhalin but also other countries across the Pacific.

The massive seismic shift also caused the ground in parts of the peninsula to move southeast by nearly two meters, most noticeably in its southern areas.

In the weeks that followed, Kamchatka saw increased volcanic activity. On August 3, the Krasheninnikov volcano erupted for the first time in 600 years, an event visible even from space. By August 7, ash emissions from Klyuchevskaya Sopka had reached a height of 12 kilometres, while lava flows formed streams of molten rock cascading down its slopes.

The volcanoes still show moderate activity.

By Tamilla Hasanova