A powerful offshore quake reverberated across the Kamchatka region and triggered tsunami alerts
Surgeons in Russia’s Far East continued a high-risk operation undeterred as an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the regional authorities have reported.
The undersea quake, which hit around 11:30am local time on Wednesday, was the strongest recorded in the region since 1952, according to the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The authorities issued a tsunami warning shortly thereafter.
CCTV footage from the operating room at a regional cancer clinic captured the tense moment. Doctors are seen stabilizing the patient, whose abdomen was open, and securing equipment as tremors shook the facility. Once the earthquake subsided, the surgical team calmly resumed the procedure. The Kamchatka Health Ministry released the video later that day, and it went viral.
“In this situation, stopping was not an option,” lead surgeon Lyubov Tsyplakova and her colleague Yana Gvozdeva told Russian media.
As it was an open surgery under anesthesia, Gvozdeva explained, the greatest concern was preventing the patient from regaining consciousness during the 5-6 minutes of tremors. She confirmed that the operation was completed successfully.
In recognition of their professionalism, Kamchatka Region Governor Vladimir Solodov announced that the surgical team would be nominated for Russian state honors.
Kamchatka is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically volatile zone encircling the Pacific Ocean that is home to 75% of the world’s active volcanoes, according to National Geographic. Earthquakes and eruptions are common in the region, which includes some of the ring’s most active volcanic systems.
The US Geological Survey classified this offshore quake as the largest globally since the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan, placing it among the ten strongest earthquakes recorded since 1900.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were no casualties and only scattered infrastructure damage, citing strong building standards and effective early-warning systems.
Following the quake, the Klyuchevskoy volcano on Kamchatka began erupting. On the night of Wednesday to Thursday (local time), a series of earthquakes with magnitudes from 5.0 to 6.0 were recorded on the peninsula within just over ten minutes. Seismologists said the quakes struck between 212km and 402km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
