A volcano near a major naval base on Russia’s east coast erupted early Sunday after a powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the Pacific about 63 miles (101 km) away, Russian state media said. It briefly triggered a “code red” alert for aircraft.
The Shiveluch volcano spewed a column of ash reaching 5 mils above sea level and released a jet of lava, the Tass news agency reported Sunday morning, citing scientists from the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Video from the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences via AP
The volcano is about 450 kilometers from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a coastal city of more than 181,000 people in Russia’s eastern Kamchatka region. The city is surrounded by volcanoes and sits across a bay from a major Russian submarine base.
The Ebeko volcano on the Kuril Islands also spewed ash 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) high, the institute said. It did not say whether the earthquake triggered the eruptions.
A red alert for the ash cloud briefly put all aircraft in the area on alert, the Kamchatka Volcano Eruption Response Team reported. A separate report Sunday by Tass said no commercial flights were disrupted and there was no damage to aviation infrastructure.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake occurred 30 kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Its epicenter was about 101 kilometers east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. No damage or injuries were reported in the early days.
VS FEBRUARY RAS via AP
The earthquake triggered a tsunami warning which was later lifted.
The U.S. National Weather Service’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu initially warned that dangerous tsunami waves were possible on shorelines within 300 miles (480 kilometers) of the quake’s epicenter, but later announced that the threat had ended.
The center said minor sea level fluctuations could occur in some coastal areas near the earthquake site for several hours.
