According to Reuters, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake (on the local scale) occurred off the coast of Kamchatka on April 11, causing panic among people in the peninsula that was affected by a volcanic eruption just 24 hours earlier.
Russian scientists said it was an aftershock from an earthquake that occurred in the area on April 3. Fortunately, the US Geological Survey assessed that the earthquake was only 4.9 magnitude (on the US Moment scale), meaning it was not enough to cause major damage.
A road in Kamchatka on April 11 was flooded with mud and ash - Photo: REUTERS
The Kamchatka Peninsula was hit by an eruption a day earlier from one of the country's most powerful volcanoes, Shiveluch. Images showed clouds of ash billowing over forests and rivers in Russia's Far East.
The Shiveluch volcano erupted shortly after midnight on April 10 and reached its peak about six hours later, spewing an ash cloud over an area of 108,000 square kilometers, according to the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences Geophysical Survey.
Ash layer up to 8.5 cm thick covers many villages - Photo: REUTERS
Lava flows from the volcano melted snow, leading to mudflow warnings along nearby highways; while villages were covered in 8.5cm of grey ash, the deepest in 60 years.
"The ash was up to 20 km high, the ash cloud moved west and the ash fell heavily on nearby villages," said Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka branch of the Russian Geophysical Survey.
About 300,000 people live on the vast Kamchatka peninsula, which juts out into the Pacific Ocean near northeastern Japan.
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