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Magnitude 8.2 earthquake strikes Russian Far East



MOSCOW: A magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck off Russia’s eastern coast on Friday, briefly prompting a tsunami scare but causing no casualties or substantial damage, Russian emergency authorities said.

The epicentre of the quake was located at a depth of 385 miles (620 km) in the Sea of Okhotsk, 244 miles (390 km) west of the nearest city, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake was felt in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the main city on the Kamchatka peninsula and home to a nuclear submarine base, and on Sakhalin island, where Russia’s largest liquefied natural gas project is located.

Regional emergency authorities issued a tsunami warning for Sakhalin and the Kurile islands, advising residents of dangerous areas to seek high ground, but lifted the warning several minutes later.

Residents of northern Japan felt the quake but there was no tsunami warning from Japan’s meteorological agency.

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