In Kamchatka, Epicenter of the Russian Earthquake, Seismic Activity Is Common
An earthquake shook the peninsula, a remote region in Russia's Far East, on Wednesday. Little damage was reported from the quake, which arose in the Pacific Ocean about 90 miles from the peninsula's capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
Unlike Turkey and Syria, countries that have been devastated by earthquakes in recent years, Kamchatka is sparsely populated — and the Soviet-era housing there typically has only one or two stories. Many houses are fortified with metal rods designed to withstand the tremors that are common in the region.
The population, about 300,000, is mostly concentrated in three big towns in the south of the peninsula, including Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
Moving around Kamchatka is difficult: The peninsula has just a few hundred miles of paved roads, mostly around major towns, and there are no roads to cross the swampland separating it from the mainland.
Kamchatka has become a popular destination for tourism in recent years, with travel companies offering camping, helicopter rides and off-road tours for the visitors to see the volcanoes or admire the pristine forests and rivers.
Several local tour guides on Wednesday morning posted videos from campsites or bungalows shaken by the earthquake.
Residents are no strangers to tremors: Seismic activity in the peninsula is common. Kamchatka is home to more than 300 volcanoes, about 30 of them active, and several erupt every year.
The earthquake Wednesday also affected the Kuril Islands near Kamchatka, which are also sparsely populated. Many of the people on the four islands, which are claimed by Japan, left after the fall of the Soviet Union.
A tour guide in the Kuril Islands, Yelena Kotenko, posted a video of tourists running out screaming from a two-story building as tiles rained down from its roof. The tourists went up the side of a volcano while a tsunami was rising on the coast, she said.
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