Strong 6.7 Magnitude Quake Rocks Kuril Islands - GS RAS

"A 6.7-magnitude earthquake was registered on Thursday at 10:16 a.m. [23:16 GMT on Wednesday] near the Kuril Islands. The epicenter of the tremors was located … 150 kilometers [93 miles] to the east of the uninhabited island of Onekotan. The hypocentral depth was 74 kilometers," Elena Semyonova, the head of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk seismological station, said.

The residents of the city of Severo-Kurilsk, located on the island of Paramushir, had felt the earthquake of up to 4.0 points on the Richter magnitude scale, Semyonova added.

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A source in the Far East Kamchatka Territory branch of the Russian Emergencies Ministry told Sputnik on Thursday that tremors of up to 2.0 points on the Richter scale had been felt in certain areas of the territory’s administrative center Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The tremors had not caused any casualties or damage to the infrastructure, the source added.

Meanwhile, the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk seismological station told Sputnik that a 5.2-magnitude aftershock hit the Kuril Islands at 11:14 a.m. "The epicenter was located 153 kilometers to the east of the uninhabited island of Onekotan. The seismal focus lay down at a depth of 63 kilometers," the center’s employee said. The aftershock tremors had not been felt in Severo-Kurilsk, she added.

Last week, the Ebeko volcano on the Paramushir island, located in the Russain Kuril Islands archipelago, spewed out a column of ash to a height of 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles).

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