“Our factory is diving under water!” A resident of Severo-Kourilsk exclaims in tears, looking at the waves that flood the use of this Russian city in the north of the Kourile Islands, after a powerful earthquake.
From a hill, this woman observes the wrapped building of the Alaïd seafood processing plant and the containers float freely, in a video broadcast on the Zvezda television channel.
“Four waves of the tsunami” fell into Severo-Kourilsk on Wednesday, the water had reached a coastal area up to 200 meters from the shore, according to the mayor of the northern district of Kouriles, Alexandre Ovsiannikov.
“The earthquake was very strong”
An earthquake of magnitude 8.8, the most powerful in the region in almost 73 years, hit Tuesday on the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula, causing tsunamis in Russia and Japan and triggering alerts in almost all the riverside countries of the Pacific.
“Each of you has felt these tremors, each of you understood how serious it was,” said Alexandre Ovsiannikov, speaking in a video with about 2,500 local inhabitants who were evacuated to a safe area.
“The earthquake was very strong, in many furniture apartments they fell, the broken dishes,” said Rossïskaïa Gazeta, a resident of Severo-Kourilsk, Oleg Stoutchinski, while making sure “most people remain calm.”
“There is no panic,” said another resident, Sergei Lakomov, saying that there are only tourists and those who have young children who get angry.
Earthquake replicas still expected
A local information site, ASTV.RU, transmitted images of the deserted streets of Severo-Kourilsk after evacuation, where a sound alarm was still heard.
According to the American Geophysical Institute (USGS), the earthquake occurred around 11:24 PM GMT Tuesday at 8.7 km deep, 126 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamthatski, capital of Kamthatka, in the Russian East.
This magnitude has been the strongest recorded in Kamchatka since November 5, 1952, when an earthquake of magnitude 9 occurred practically in the same place had caused devastating tsunamis throughout the Pacific Ocean.
Kamchatka’s seismological service warned that replicas of up to 7.5 are expected.
Source: BFM TV
