PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, April 22 (RIA Novosti) - Between 150 and 180 people have been evacuated from two towns after earthquakes rocked the northern part of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia's Far East on Friday, a local official said Saturday.
The federal inspector for Kamchatka's Koryak area, Vladimir Ilyukin, said that in addition to those already evacuated from Tilichiki and Korf, another 300 people wanted to leave the region.
A plane has taken 30 evacuees including 27 children to a military air base in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital in the south of the peninsular, where temporary accommodation has been set up and medical help is available.
The initial 7.8-magnitude quake, the strongest since 1900 in the Koryak area, which is eight time zones from Moscow, injured 31 people and damaged several buildings and facilities in Tilichiki, including a school, a kindergarten, a local airport's runway, and cut power and water supplies in several villages.
Earthquake aftershocks of Richter magnitudes of up to five continued through the night, and seismologists have warned of stronger quakes still to come.
