Relatively minor damage was reported in Russia’s Far East as the initial effects of a powerful earthquake and tsunami were felt on Wednesday.
A local port was flooded and ceiling panels fell at a terminal building of a regional airport. The authorities reported that evacuations had been successful.
The extent of damage remained unclear, however, and the local governor said that a solid assessment would take a week.
Videos posted by residents and regional authorities showed buildings shaking. “It has already been so long,” a woman said in one video, which The New York Times verified. “Please stop. Please.”
The local health ministry told Interfax, a Russian news agency, that some people had been injured as a result of the earthquake but that “no serious traumas have been observed.”
The Kamchatka region, a vast peninsula jutting down into the Pacific, is one of the most remote regions in Russia. It has a growing role as a tourist destination thanks to its lush nature, plentiful fish and active volcanoes. But it is not very populated: Its landmass, roughly the size of Sweden, is home to 290,000 people.
An undersea earthquake struck at 11:24 a.m. local time on Tuesday, 78 miles from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the administrative seat of the Kamchatka region, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Minutes later, Gov. Vladimir Solodov placed a tsunami warning on Kamchatka.
South of the peninsula, Gov. Valery Limarenko of the neighboring Sakhalin region declared an emergency in the district of Severo-Kurilsk on the island of Paramushir. Paramushir and Shumshu, a smaller island nearby, were put under a tsunami warning soon after the quake.
Videos posted by the Kamchatka branch of the Russian geophysics service showed seawater flooding coastal buildings there.
Aleksandr Ovsyannikov, the head of the Severo-Kurilsk municipality, said in a statement that four tsunami waves had hit the town, with some reaching 650 feet inland. He also told Interfax that the waves had flooded the port and pushed some ships into the open sea.
The agency that tracks earthquakes and tsunamis in the region said the quake was the biggest in the area since 1952. It said “a strong aftershock process” was underway. “Without doubt, this is an outstanding event,” it said.
There were no casualties reported from the tsunami, and all 2,400 residents of Severo-Kurilsk were evacuated, Mr. Limarenko said on Telegram. But the tsunami flooded a port and a fish factory, Mr. Limarenko said.
In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a kindergarten was among the structures damaged by the quake. Sergei Lebedev, Kamchatka’s minister for emergency situations, said that no one was injured, as the kindergarten was empty and under repair when the earthquake hit.
Ceiling panels at a local airport, where a new terminal building opened a few months ago, fell on passengers, injuring one woman, the regional emergency authority said. Around 60 surfers were evacuated from a beach, emergency authorities said.
Kamchatka authorities advised businesses to close from 1 p.m. local time, an hour and a half after the earthquake struck. They also closed volcanic parks and trekking routes in the peninsula’s southern tip for the next five days, saying volcanologists had warned of ongoing seismic activity. Kamchatka has more than 100 active volcanoes that are part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
Jiawei Wang contributed reporting from Seoul.
Ivan Nechepurenko covers Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the countries of the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
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