Powerful earthquake rocks north-eastern Russia

A MASSIVE earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, followed by a huge aftershock, has rocked Russia’s remote north-eastern Kamchatka peninsula but caused only light injuries.

The quake struck late on Thursday night and was followed five hours later by a tremor measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale, the Kamchatka seismological service said.

Thousands of people in the sparsely populated Koryakiya district of Kamchatka were affected but only four required medical attention with about 50 more believed to have suffered scratches and other minor injuries, the emergency situations ministry said.

An initial warning of a follow-on tsunami wave in the Bering Sea off Russia’s far-eastern coast was lifted.

Authorities declared a state of emergency in Koryakiya and dispatched emergency supplies and repair workers to help hundreds of people feared to be facing a night outside in sub-zero temperatures.

President Vladimir Putin announced that the emergency services “have already deployed and in some areas are already helping”.

“So far there are no reports of fatalities,” he was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS news agency.

There were widely conflicting accounts of how many people live in the earthquake zone and how many villages were affected. Mr Putin said that as many as 10,000 people might be in the area.

The nearest village to the epicentre, Tilichiki, is home to more than 2,000 people.

“The evacuation of people from the villages of Korfa and Tilichiki is being considered because the heating pipes and boilers were damaged and the heating has completely halted,” the district’s deputy governor Zhanna Saksina said.