An estimated magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s eastern coast has resulted in tsunami warnings across much of the Pacific.
New Zealand’s coasts may experience “strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges” and NEMA has advised staying off beaches and shore areas. The Russian city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, with a population of 180,000 people, is close to the earthquake epicentre.
The SMC asked experts to comment.
Research Associate Professor Caroline Orchiston, Director, Centre for Sustainability, University of Otago, comments:
“Today’s earthquake that occurred just off the Kamchatka peninsula is a large magnitude event (M8.8), and occurred on a subduction zone where the Pacific Plate is diving down under the Okhotsk Plate – and because it was offshore, it generated a tsunami.
“According to the USGS, the area has a relatively small population, so damage or injuries to local people and property isn’t expected to be too large. The US Pacific Northwest and Alaskan coasts are under a Tsunami Advisory, with waves of less than 1 ft expected in some northern areas, with Crescent City (a promontory on the Oregon Coast) having the largest predicted waves of up to 4.8 ft (USGS).
“At last count, there have already been 10 aftershocks above magnitude 5, the largest at M6.9. This demonstrates that large magnitude earthquakes generate aftershock sequences that start immediately, and some of these can be damaging in their own right. From the perspective of local people, their experience of this earthquake is going to be compounded in the coming weeks, months and years by on-going aftershock activity, which can have a significant psycho-social affect.
“Aotearoa lies just over 9,600 km from the epicentre, with nothing but the Pacific Ocean between us. New Zealand is no stranger to the effects of distant tsunami events, for example our experience of the 1960 M9.6 Chilean earthquake. Waves of up to 5.5 m in some coastal locations took 10-12 hours to cross the Pacific Ocean to reach our shores. The NEMA mobile phone alert that came out this afternoon urged people not to go tsunami sight-seeing at the coast. Let’s take heed of this warning, and show that we have learnt something about tsunami risk by keeping clear of any waves or strong currents on our beaches, inlets and other coastal locations.”
No conflicts of interest.
Dr Jennifer Eccles, Senior Lecturer, School of Environment, University of Auckland, comments:
“The magnitude 8.8 earthquake that has struck in far Eastern Russia off the low population density Kamchatka Peninsula is sourced from the Kuril-Kamchatka arc subduction system, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the Pacific Plate is subducting beneath the North American Plate (yes, Eastern Russia is on the North American tectonic plate).
“This has resulted in very strong shaking locally and also caused the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre to issue potential threat warning to eastern Russia, Western North America and Japan with nearby coastlines feeling any impact first. Tsunami waves travel at speeds comparable to commercial aircraft will take some time to cross the Pacific Ocean with any impacts to New Zealand waters expected from midnight. By that time observations from coastlines impacted and marine DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) Buoys will allow a very good estimate of any potential coastal threat. Please see NEMA (The National Emergency Management Agency) for current advisories.”
Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
Dr Lauren Vinnell, Senior Lecturer of Emergency Management, Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University, comments:
“Tsunami are a serious hazard, and they don’t have to be very big to pose a threat. Anyone on the water or near the shore should take this warning seriously, as the expected currents and surges could be big enough to cause damage, injury, and threat to life. It is always better to be safe than sorry – if you act now to keep yourself safe and end up being fine, you can consider it as good practice for next time.
“For most of us, today’s event can serve as a gentle reminder that we do need to think about tsunami and know how to respond. Sometimes, like today, there will be time to give warnings, but this won’t always be the case if the tsunami starts closer to our shores. Remember, long or strong get gone – drop, cover, and hold during the shaking, and then if the shaking was longer than a minute or strong enough that it would be hard to stand, evacuate immediately uphill or inland. If in doubt, it is always best to evacuate. If today’s event has you nervous, the best thing you can do is check your tsunami hazard zones, make sure you’d be ready to leave home quickly, and plan where you would evacuate to.”
No conflicts of interest.
Professor John Townend, earthquake scientist and Professor of Geophysics at Victoria University of Wellington, comments:
“Today’s magnitude 8.8 earthquake near Kamchatka is the largest earthquake to have occurred worldwide since the magnitude ~9.1 Tohoku earthquake in 2011.
“Today’s earthquake occurred in the subduction zone beneath the Kamchatka Peninsula, where the Pacific plate is moving WNW at approximately 75 mm/yr and being forced beneath the the Okhotsk plate that forms eastern Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula and in some studies is considered part of the North American plate.
“Given the earthquake’s size and location, and preliminary seismological observations, it is likely to have involved slip of 10+ m over an area of ~150 x 400 km, although further analysis over the next 12-24 hours will be required to confirm this. Today’s earthquake was preceded on 20 July by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, now recognised as a foreshock.
“The depth, size, and faulting characteristics of today’s earthquake combined to generate a tsunami that has already affected nearby coastlines and Japan and will have ongoing effects across the Pacific in coming hours. Today’s earthquake released approximately 30x more energy than the 2016 magnitude 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake and approximately 3x less energy than the magnitude 9.1 Tohoku earthquake.”
No conflicts of interest.
Dr Ulrich Speidel, Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, University of Auckland, comments:
“Large earthquakes often damage submarine fibre-optic cables that criss-cross the seafloor to provide Internet connectivity around the globe. We saw that for example after the 2022 volcanic eruption in Tonga, which cut Tonga off proper Internet for over a month, and parts of Tonga for over a year. So NZ and its South Pacific neighbours are also vulnerable in this respect, and we’re watching this closely.
“Yesterday’s quake was just off Kamchatka Peninsula, off Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The epicentre of the quake is actually in an area traversed by a cable system – the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Anadyr cable. This is a relatively new cable that was commissioned less than three years ago. That said, this cable connects domestically within Russia only. Currently there is no indication that there was any damage to it, possibly because it is located “uphill” from where any underwater landslides might have occurred.
“That said, this is very difficult to judge from afar. Any debris flows from submarine landslides in the area may still be on the move and may not have reached the cable yet. This includes any landslides triggered by aftershocks, by the way. That is something we also saw happening in Tonga last year when further damage occurred on their domestic cable – over two years after the original eruption.
“A few 100 km south of Kamchatka, there are also a number of trans-pacific cables between Japan and North America. So these are also potentially still in the firing line. Underwater flows of the type that can damage cables can move for hundreds of kilometres and don’t necessarily move overly fast. This means that we may yet see cable failures in this region. If there were to be cable failures in the hours or days to come, these could take weeks, months or even years to repair completely. Japan has a lot of redundant and diverse connectivity, however. So we probably wouldn’t see it get disconnected from the Internet: This didn’t even happen after the 2011 quake and tsunami, which damaged quite a few cables off Japan, and there are even more cables now.
“I’m currently involved in a large international collaboration that’s looking at how this might impact on us in terms of the services we might lose access to if some of our cables failed in a disaster. That’s important because quite a lot of us – including a significant chunk of the the NZ government – have their web sites, e-mail and cloud storage offshore.”
Conflicts of interest: None declared.
Our colleagues at the UK Science Media Centre have also gathered comments on the earthquake and tsunami, climate change induced sea level rises and potential impact on tsunami, and reports that the Fukushima nuclear site was evacuated due to the tsunami.