Tsunami waves reach Hawaii after big quake rattles Russia’s Far East

A POWERFUL magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula triggered tsunami waves of up to 5 meters (16 feet) nearby and sparked evacuation orders as far away as Hawaii and across the Pacific on Wednesday.

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The shallow earthquake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan’s eastern seaboard — devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 —was ordered to evacuate.

A resident in the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky said the shaking went on for several minutes.

“T decided to leave the building,” said Yaroslav, 25. “It felt like the walls could collapse any moment. The shaking lasted continuously for at least 3 minutes.”

Video footage released by the region’s health ministry showed a team of medics in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky performing surgery as the tremors shook their equipment and the floor beneath them.

Tsunami waves struck parts of Kamchatka, partially flooding the port and a fish processing plant in the town of Severo-Kurilsk and sweeping vessels from their moorings, regional officials and Russia’s emergency ministry said.

Verified drone footage showed the town’s entire shoreline was submerged, with taller buildings and some storage facilities surrounded by water, which was seen pouring back into the sea.

“Today's earthquake was serious and the strongest in decades of tremors,” Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app. Russian scientists said it was the most powerful to hit the region since 1952.