Earthquake of magnitude 6.7 strikes Kuril Islands, no tsunami threat

Moscow: An earthquake of magnitude 6.7 struck Russia's Kuril Islands on Sunday day, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said.

The agency initially had pegged the earthquake at 6.35 magnitude, with a 10-km (6.2-mile) depth.

The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake was at a magnitude of 7. The Pacific Tsunami Warning System, which also gauged the quake at 7.0, said there was no tsunami warning after the quake.

Overnight, the Krasheninnikov Volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA state news agency and scientists reported on Sunday.

Both incidents come just days after a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake in the same region triggered tsunami alerts as far away as Japan, Indonesia, Australia, the United States, and Chile.

Russian scientists believe that the volcanic eruption was connected to last week’s quake.

“This is the first historically confirmed eruption of Krasheninnikov Volcano in 600 years,” Russian news agency RIA cited Olga Girina, head of the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team, as saying. She added the eruption “may be connected to the earthquake on Wednesday”, which was followed by an eruption of Klyuchevskoy, the most active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula.