- Earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck Kamchatka Peninsula early Wednesday causing strong tremors and tsunamis
- Video showed doctors continuing surgery during earthquake at a Kamchatka hospital with patient recovering well
- Tsunami heights recorded were 3-4m in Kamchatka
A powerful earthquake of magnitude 8.8 -- one of the strongest ever recorded -- struck Russia's sparsely populated far eastern Kamchatka peninsula early on Wednesday, causing strong tremors and tsunamis up to four metres (12 feet) across the Pacific Ocean. Several videos from the Kamchatka region appeared on social media, showing buildings shaking during the seismic activity.
Russia's state-controlled international news network, RT, shared a video from what they claimed was a cancer hospital in Kamchatka. The footage appears to be from the operation theatre of the hospital, and shows doctors performing a surgery when the temblor rocked the area.
Despite strong tremors violently shaking the building, doctors kept calm and continued operating on their patient until the end.
Quoting Russia's health ministry, RT reported that the surgery went well and the patient was in recovery.
Ports on the Kamchatka Peninsula near the quake's epicentre flooded, as residents fled inland after tsunami waves hit the area.
The powerful earthquake generated tsunami warnings and advisories for a broad section of the Pacific, including Alaska, Hawaii and the US West Coast. It also triggered a tsunami in Japan while alerts were issued as far as China and New Zealand. Frothy, white waves washed up to the shore in northern Japan, as cars jammed streets and highways in Hawaii's capital, with standstill traffic even in areas away from the shoreline.
People went to evacuation centres in affected areas of Japan, with memories fresh of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused reactor meltdowns at a nuclear power plant. No abnormalities in operations at Japan's nuclear plants were reported Wednesday.
A tsunami height of 3-4 meters (10 to 13 feet) was recorded in Kamchatka, 60 centimetres (2 feet) on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, and up to 1.4 feet (under 30 centimetres) above tide levels were observed in Alaska's Aleutian Islands.
Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator with the National Tsunami Warning Centre in Alaska, called the earthquake "absolutely notable" and "a significant earth event."
