A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in the country’s Far East.
The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said the epicentre was about 123 kilometres southwest of Vilyuchinsk, at a depth of 140 kilometres.
The earthquake struck at around 3:35pm local time.
No tsunami warning was issued following the quake. The US National Tsunami Warning Center said there was no tsunami threat from the earthquake.
Details about possible damage or casualties were not immediately available.
In a separate development, Japan’s Meteorological Agency mistakenly issued an early warning indicating a magnitude 9.9 earthquake, according to BNO News. The alert forecast intense shaking across a large part of Japan, although the agency’s own measurement put the earthquake’s magnitude at 6.9.
Had the 9.9-magnitude warning been accurate, it would have indicated the strongest earthquake ever recorded.
The Kamchatka Peninsula lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a vast tectonic belt surrounding much of the Pacific Ocean that is highly prone to earthquakes.
In July last year, a powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off the region’s coast, triggering a tsunami that submerged parts of a coastal village.