Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands.
“The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area.
However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled.
Photo: EPA / Russian Institute of Volcanology and Seismology
Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA state news agency and scientists reported yesterday.
Both incidents could be connected to the huge earthquake that rocked Russia’s Far East last week, which triggered tsunami warnings as far away as French Polynesia and Chile, and was followed by an eruption of Klyuchevskoy, the most active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The Kuril Islands stretch from the southern tip of Kamchatka Peninsula to the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Russian scientists had warned on Wednesday that strong aftershocks were possible in the region in the next several weeks.
“This is the first historically confirmed eruption of Krasheninnikov Volcano in 600 years,” RIA cited Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team head Olga Girina as saying.
On the Telegram channel of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Girina said that Krasheninnikov’s previous lava effusion took place within 40 years of 1463 and no eruption has been known since.
The Kamchatka branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said that an ash plume rising to 6,000m had been recorded following the volcano’s eruption. The volcano itself stands at 1,856m.
“The ash cloud has drifted eastward, toward the Pacific Ocean. There are no populated areas along its path,” the ministry said on Telegram.
The eruption of the volcano has been assigned an “orange” aviation code, indicating a heightened risk to aircraft, the ministry added.
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said the strengthening of military facilities would help to maintain security in the Taiwan Strait Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post would move forward as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing. “The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Koizumi told reporters on Sunday as he wrapped up his first trip to the base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.” Former Japanese minister of defense Gen Nakatani in January said that Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, but little progress
NO CHANGES: A Japanese spokesperson said that Tokyo remains consistent and open for dialogue, while Beijing has canceled diplomatic engagements A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies from spiraling. China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the UN. “I’m aware of this letter,” said Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman. “The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday. The Chinese Ministry
RSS