By Jaime Ortega.
Tremors have been felt all across Russia and in Europe, following a major 8.2 earthquake in the Sakhalin region. Panicking Muscovites began calling security services, and some decided to leave their homes.
The residents informed security services of vibration and tremors that caused furniture and kitchen utensils to move.
Moscow residents wrote on Twitter about the tremors: “wasn’t really strong, but things hanging on the walls were shaking,” “the fourteenth floor of the Smolensky Passage [a large market in the city center] was noticeably shaking!” and “a house was shaking in the center of Moscow on Tverskaya street.”
“The aftershocks occurred in Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, in Europe – for instance, in Romania. Almost the entire continent was shaken,” Anatoly Tsygankov, the head of the Situation Center for Agency of Hydrometeorological and Environmental monitoring told Interfax news agency.
An employee at news website NEWSru.com recounted the Moscow tremor: “I have a flat on the 7th floor. At 9:43am I was sitting at my desk in front of the computer when the desk started shaking. We have a metro station underground, so I thought that something happened there. But the vibrations continued, and it became clear that everything was shaking like during an earthquake.”
The witness says there were at least three tremors; two strong ones, and another, weaker one. Then he started calling Emergency. When the operator answered, the reporter heard someone telling another operator their address, and he understood that the vibrations were happening all over Moscow.
Marina Kolomiyets, spokeswoman for Obninsk’s seismic station of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the epicenter was in the Sea of Okhotsk, east of the Russian coast and north of Japan, and was 130 kilometres away from the nearest village. She said the quake registered 8.0 on the Richter scale.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude of 8.3. The epicenter was in the Kuril-Kamchatka arc, one of the most seismically active regions in the world.
Emergency agencies in the Far East issued a tsunami warning for Sakhalin and the Kuril islands, but lifted it soon afterwards. Kolomiyets said the earthquake originated 600 kilometres under the sea bed and with the tremors so far down they have the potential to spread quite far.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said they have not recorded any casualties or damage from the quake.
A big aftershock came about nine hours after the first quake. The Russian Academy of Sciences measured it at 7.0, while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at magnitude 6.8.
Russian news agencies reported that residents of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Okhotsk Sea felt the first quake for about five minutes. Residents ran out of the buildings. School children were evacuated.
Felt in California
The magnitude-5.7 quake broke dishes and shook mirrors when it struck at 8:47 p.m. Thursday, officials said.
It was centered near Greenville, about 25 miles southwest of Susanville in far northeastern California, said Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Center in Golden, Colo.
There have been several aftershocks, including a magnitude 4.9 that struck early Friday morning.
Slight damage has been reported including objects falling from shelves and dishes rattled or broken, according to a report from the National Weather Service.
