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September 18, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Strong Earthquake Hits Kamchatka. Tsunami Risk Waning<\/p>\n
A powerful magnitude 7.8 aftershock off Russia\u2019s Kamchatka Peninsula that arose from July\u2019s magnitude 8.8 earthquake is raising concerns about possible tsunami impacts, although risk appears to be waning<\/p>\n
By Meghan Bartels edited by Lee Billings<\/span><\/p>\n A seismic map shows the epicenter and intensity of a major earthquake that struck off the eastern coast of Russia\u2019s Kamchatka Peninsula on September 18, 2025, EDT.<\/p>\n Less than two months after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake rocked Russia\u2019s Kamchatka Peninsula, another strong earthquake occurred early on September 19 local time.<\/p>\n Although tsunami waves have been observed closer to the earthquake\u2019s epicenter off Kamchatka\u2019s eastern coast, shortly before 5 P.M. EDT, officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center announced an \u201call clear\u201d for Hawaii, ruling out the possibility of giant waves crossing the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n The U.S. Geological Survey made an initial estimate of the new earthquake\u2019s magnitude as 7.8, meaning that the July 29 event released more than 30 times the energy of this one and produced waves with about 10 times the magnitude of the latter. (The scale by which scientists measure earthquakes is logarithmic, not linear.)<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n The July event was among the 10 strongest earthquakes on record; this new temblor won\u2019t make that cut. According to Reuters, the Kamchatka region\u2019s governor said that there have been no reports of damage from the recent event in the sparsely populated region.<\/p>\n USGS has already confirmed that the magnitude 7.8 event is an aftershock of the earlier earthquake, making it the latter quake\u2019s largest aftershock to date. Both earthquakes occurred on the Kuril-Kamchatka plate boundary, which stretches from northern Japan, along the eastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, toward the Aleutian Islands. Here, the Pacific plate is sinking under the North American plate, making the region one of the world\u2019s most seismically active, according to USGS.<\/p>\n The July earthquake spurred concerns of a serious tsunami but ended up not producing such a phenomenon because of local geology.<\/p>\n If you live in Hawaii or along the western coast of the U.S. when a tsunami risk is declared, monitor tsunami alerts from the federal government and follow the directives of local emergency response personnel.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September 18, 2025 2 min read Strong Earthquake Hits Kamchatka. Tsunami Risk Waning A powerful magnitude 7.8 aftershock off Russia\u2019s Kamchatka Peninsula that arose from July\u2019s magnitude 8.8 earthquake is raising concerns about possible tsunami impacts, although risk appears to be waning By Meghan Bartels edited by Lee Billings A seismic map shows the epicenter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[13680,2417,13681,13682,736,85,3348,13683],"class_list":{"0":"post-22298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-aftershock","9":"tag-earthquake","10":"tag-julys","11":"tag-kamchatka","12":"tag-risk","13":"tag-strikes","14":"tag-tsunami","15":"tag-waning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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