Massive Russia earthquake a ‘truly major event,' experts warn of powerful aftershocks
The shallow earthquake, centered 119 kilometers east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, generated tsunamis up to four meters high and prompted evacuations from Japan to Hawaii.
'A magnitude 8.8 earthquake is a truly huge event,' said Judith Hubbard, a Harvard graduate and earthquake scientist who has been tracking seismic activity in the region. 'That places this earthquake firmly within the top 10 largest earthquakes ever recorded.'
The Kamchatka subduction zone has now produced two of the world's top-ten largest earthquakes, Hubbard said, with the other being a magnitude 9.0 in 1952.
Widespread damage and injuries
Several people were injured in the remote Russian region, with local health officials reporting patients hurt while fleeing buildings and one person who jumped from a window during the intense shaking.
'Unfortunately, there are some people injured during the seismic event. Some were hurt while running outside, and one patient jumped out of a window. A woman was also injured inside the new airport terminal,' regional health minister Oleg Melnikov told Russia's TASS news agency.
'All patients are currently in satisfactory condition, and no serious injuries have been reported so far.'
The US Geological Survey's PAGER system estimates that Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, with a population of 187,000, experienced intensity VIII shaking classified as 'severe.'
The massive seafloor displacement generated a transoceanic tsunami that was recorded by deep-ocean monitoring buoys and prompted urgent evacuations across the Pacific Rim.
'A tsunami with a height of 3–4 meters was recorded in parts of Kamchatka,' said Sergei Lebedev, the region's emergency situations minister, urging residents to move away from shorelines.
Russia's Emergency Ministry reported that the port in Severo-Kurilsk and a fish processing plant were partially flooded, with the population evacuated to safety.
Japan upgraded its tsunami warning, expecting waves up to 3 meters to reach large coastal areas. Authorities ordered evacuations along Japan's eastern seaboard, still scarred by the devastating 2011 tsunami. Workers were evacuated from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant as a precaution.
The US Tsunami Warning System issued alerts for 'hazardous tsunami waves,' estimating maximum heights of more than 3 meters along parts of Russia's coastline and 1-3 meters for Japan, Hawaii, Chile, and the Solomon Islands.
Aftershocks likely
Scientists warned that the massive earthquake would likely trigger numerous powerful aftershocks, with some potentially exceeding magnitude 7.
'Many aftershocks are expected, including some that may exceed magnitude 7,' Hubbard said. 'There is also the potential that another large earthquake could be triggered on a nearby section of the megathrust fault.'
The largest aftershock recorded so far measured magnitude 6.9, occurring about 45 minutes after the main event. The aftershock zone currently stretches more than 600 kilometers along the subduction zone.
Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka Branch of the Geophysical Service, said on Telegram that 'aftershocks are currently ongoing' and 'their intensity will remain fairly high,' though he added that stronger tremors were not expected in the immediate future.
The earthquake occurred along a megathrust fault where tectonic plates converge, typical of the world's largest seismic events. In such great earthquakes, scientists expect 'several meters, locally up to tens of meters, of slip on a stretch of fault hundreds of kilometers long,' Hubbard explained. 'The rupture itself might take several minutes, producing intense shaking with long duration,' she said, noting that areas along the coast and inland experienced very strong to severe shaking, with secondary effects like landslides and liquefaction likely widespread.
The Russian Academy of Sciences confirmed this was the strongest earthquake to hit the region since 1952.
Great earthquakes typically become subjects of intense scientific study, Hubbard said, combining 'widespread human impacts with unusually large geological signals.'
'They are examples of the most critical seismological questions: why does a specific rupture, born as a tiny crack like millions of others, grow to such immense size?' she said. 'And why is this extravagant growth so (fortunately) unusual?'
Researchers expect numerous studies to emerge examining everything from the rupture process and tsunami effects to impacts on the region's many active volcanoes and global seismological phenomena.
The Kamchatka Peninsula sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active region prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. As communities across the Pacific assess damage and prepare for continued aftershocks, scientists emphasized the importance of following evacuation orders.
'Do not second-guess a tsunami warning: evacuate to higher ground and wait for the all-clear,' Hubbard urged.
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Saudi Gazette
5 days ago
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Up the road, the fight rages for the key town of Pokrovsk – in the Kremlin's crosshairs for months, but now at risk of encirclement. Across eastern Ukraine, Russia's tiny gains are adding up. It is capitalizing on a series of small advances and throwing significant resources into an emerging summer offensive, one that risks reshaping control over the front lines. Over four days reporting in the villages behind Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk – two of the most embattled Ukrainian towns in Donetsk region – CNN witnessed the swift change in control of territory. Russian drones were able to penetrate deep into areas Kyiv's forces once relied upon as oases of calm, and troops struggled to find the personnel and resources to halt a persistent enemy advance. The Russian momentum comes as US President Donald Trump radically shortened his deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to make peace from 50 to up to 12 days. Trump expressed said he was 'very disappointed' in Putin and suggested the Kremlin head had already decided not to entertain the ceasefire the US and its European allies have demanded for months. The reduced timeframe was welcomed by Kyiv and may provide a greater sense of urgency in Western capitals over diplomatic or military support for Ukraine. But it seems unlikely to alter Moscow's course, where its superior manpower, tolerance for casualties, and vast military production line is beginning to reap dividends. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week Russian forces were 'not advancing,' but acknowledged the circumstances across the frontline were 'tough.' The sense of an evolving crisis was most acute around the town of Pokrovsk, unsuccessfully assaulted by Moscow for months at great cost in Russian life. One Ukrainian commander serving near the town described 'a very bad scenario,' in which troops in the adjoining town to Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, risked 'being surrounded.' The officer added Russians had already moved into the nearby village of Rodynske, and were on the edges of Biletske, endangering the supply line for Ukrainian troops inside Pokrovsk – assessments confirmed by a Ukrainian police officer and another Ukrainian soldier to CNN Tuesday. The commander, who like many officials spoke on condition of anonymity discussing a sensitive topic, said they feared a siege was likely, similar to Avdiivka and Vuhledar last year, where 'we held out to the last and lost both cities and people as a result.' Viktor Tregubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsia group of forces active in the area, told state television on Tuesday there 'is constant pressure all along the entire eastern front. Right now, it's absolutely everywhere.' He said Russian troops assaulted mostly on foot. 'If someone is killed, others immediately follow.' While Moscow's forces have made only incremental gains over recent months – seizing small settlements to little strategic avail – the pace of their advance has accelerated, according to open-source mapping by DeepState. More perilously for Kyiv, recent progress has been strategically advantageous, making the encirclement of Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka, and Kupiansk to the north, a palpable threat in the weeks ahead. The fall of these three towns would create three separate crises for Kyiv. Firstly, they are the urban areas from which Ukraine defends the remainders of the Donetsk region it controls, without which its troops lack hubs for shelter and resupply. Secondly, their loss to Moscow would free up a significant number of Russian forces to push hard onto Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – the largest Donetsk towns still under Ukrainian control. 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6 days ago
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Massive Russia earthquake a ‘truly major event,' experts warn of powerful aftershocks
A magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday represents 'a truly huge event' that places the tremor among the top 10 largest earthquakes ever recorded, scientists said, as tsunami warnings stretched across the Pacific Ocean and authorities braced for powerful aftershocks. The shallow earthquake, centered 119 kilometers east-southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, generated tsunamis up to four meters high and prompted evacuations from Japan to Hawaii. 'A magnitude 8.8 earthquake is a truly huge event,' said Judith Hubbard, a Harvard graduate and earthquake scientist who has been tracking seismic activity in the region. 'That places this earthquake firmly within the top 10 largest earthquakes ever recorded.' The Kamchatka subduction zone has now produced two of the world's top-ten largest earthquakes, Hubbard said, with the other being a magnitude 9.0 in 1952. Widespread damage and injuries Several people were injured in the remote Russian region, with local health officials reporting patients hurt while fleeing buildings and one person who jumped from a window during the intense shaking. 'Unfortunately, there are some people injured during the seismic event. Some were hurt while running outside, and one patient jumped out of a window. A woman was also injured inside the new airport terminal,' regional health minister Oleg Melnikov told Russia's TASS news agency. 'All patients are currently in satisfactory condition, and no serious injuries have been reported so far.' The US Geological Survey's PAGER system estimates that Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, with a population of 187,000, experienced intensity VIII shaking classified as 'severe.' The massive seafloor displacement generated a transoceanic tsunami that was recorded by deep-ocean monitoring buoys and prompted urgent evacuations across the Pacific Rim. 'A tsunami with a height of 3–4 meters was recorded in parts of Kamchatka,' said Sergei Lebedev, the region's emergency situations minister, urging residents to move away from shorelines. Russia's Emergency Ministry reported that the port in Severo-Kurilsk and a fish processing plant were partially flooded, with the population evacuated to safety. Japan upgraded its tsunami warning, expecting waves up to 3 meters to reach large coastal areas. Authorities ordered evacuations along Japan's eastern seaboard, still scarred by the devastating 2011 tsunami. Workers were evacuated from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant as a precaution. The US Tsunami Warning System issued alerts for 'hazardous tsunami waves,' estimating maximum heights of more than 3 meters along parts of Russia's coastline and 1-3 meters for Japan, Hawaii, Chile, and the Solomon Islands. Aftershocks likely Scientists warned that the massive earthquake would likely trigger numerous powerful aftershocks, with some potentially exceeding magnitude 7. 'Many aftershocks are expected, including some that may exceed magnitude 7,' Hubbard said. 'There is also the potential that another large earthquake could be triggered on a nearby section of the megathrust fault.' The largest aftershock recorded so far measured magnitude 6.9, occurring about 45 minutes after the main event. The aftershock zone currently stretches more than 600 kilometers along the subduction zone. Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka Branch of the Geophysical Service, said on Telegram that 'aftershocks are currently ongoing' and 'their intensity will remain fairly high,' though he added that stronger tremors were not expected in the immediate future. The earthquake occurred along a megathrust fault where tectonic plates converge, typical of the world's largest seismic events. In such great earthquakes, scientists expect 'several meters, locally up to tens of meters, of slip on a stretch of fault hundreds of kilometers long,' Hubbard explained. 'The rupture itself might take several minutes, producing intense shaking with long duration,' she said, noting that areas along the coast and inland experienced very strong to severe shaking, with secondary effects like landslides and liquefaction likely widespread. The Russian Academy of Sciences confirmed this was the strongest earthquake to hit the region since 1952. Great earthquakes typically become subjects of intense scientific study, Hubbard said, combining 'widespread human impacts with unusually large geological signals.' 'They are examples of the most critical seismological questions: why does a specific rupture, born as a tiny crack like millions of others, grow to such immense size?' she said. 'And why is this extravagant growth so (fortunately) unusual?' Researchers expect numerous studies to emerge examining everything from the rupture process and tsunami effects to impacts on the region's many active volcanoes and global seismological phenomena. The Kamchatka Peninsula sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active region prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. As communities across the Pacific assess damage and prepare for continued aftershocks, scientists emphasized the importance of following evacuation orders. 'Do not second-guess a tsunami warning: evacuate to higher ground and wait for the all-clear,' Hubbard urged.
Al Arabiya
27-07-2025
- Al Arabiya
Nih cuts spotlight a hidden crisis facing patients with experimental brain implants
Carol Seeger finally escaped her debilitating depression with an experimental treatment that placed electrodes in her brain and a pacemaker-like device in her chest. But when its batteries stopped working, insurance wouldn't pay to fix the problem, and she sank back into a dangerous darkness. She worried for her life, asking herself: 'Why am I putting myself through this?' Seeger's predicament highlights a growing problem for hundreds of people with experimental neural implants, including those for depression, quadriplegia, and other conditions. Although these patients take big risks to advance science, there's no guarantee that their devices will be maintained – particularly after they finish participating in clinical trials – and no mechanism requiring companies or insurers to do so. A research project led by Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, a Harvard University scientist, aimed to change that by creating partnerships between players in the burgeoning implant field to overcome barriers to device access and follow-up care. But the cancellation of hundreds of National Institutes of Health grants by the Trump administration this year left the project in limbo, dimming hope for Seeger and others like her who wonder what will happen to their health and progress. An ethical quagmire – Unlike medications, implanted devices often require parts, maintenance, batteries, and surgeries when changes are needed. Insurance typically covers such expenses for federally approved devices considered medically necessary but not experimental ones. A procedure to replace a battery alone can cost more than $15,000 without insurance, Lázaro-Muñoz said. 'While companies stand to profit from research, there's really nothing that helps ensure that device manufacturers have to provide any of these parts or cover any kind of maintenance,' said Lázaro-Muñoz. Some companies also move on to newer versions of devices or abandon the research altogether, which can leave patients in an uncertain place. Medtronic, the company that made the deep brain stimulation or DBS technology Seeger used, said in a statement that every study is different and that the company puts patient safety first when considering care after studies end. 'People consider various possibilities when they join a clinical trial.' The Food and Drug Administration requires the informed consent process to include a description of reasonably foreseeable risks and discomforts to the participant, a spokesperson said. However, the FDA doesn't require trial plans to include procedures for long-term device follow-up and maintenance, although the spokesperson stated that the agency has requested those in the past. While some informed consent forms say devices will be removed at a study's end, Lázaro-Muñoz said removal is ethically problematic when a device is helping a patient. Plus, he said some trial participants told him and his colleagues that they didn't remember everything discussed during the consent process, partly because they were so focused on getting better. Brandy Ellis, a 49-year-old in Boynton Beach, Florida, said she was desperate for healing when she joined a trial testing the same treatment Seeger got, which delivers an electrical current into the brain to treat severe depression. She was willing to sign whatever forms were necessary to get help after nothing else had worked. 'I was facing death,' she said. 'So it was most definitely consent at the barrel of a gun, which is true for a lot of people who are in a terminal condition.' Patients risk losing a treatment of last resort – Ellis and Seeger, 64, both turned to DBS as a last resort after trying many approved medications and treatments. 'I got in the trial fully expecting it not to work because nothing else had. So I was kind of surprised when it did,' said Ellis, whose device was implanted in 2011 at Emory University in Atlanta. 'I am celebrating every single milestone because I'm like: 'This is all bonus life for me.'' She's now on her third battery. She needed surgery to replace two single-use ones, and the one she has now is rechargeable. She's lucky her insurance has covered the procedures, she said, but she worries it may not in the future. 'I can't count on any coverage because there's nothing that says even though I've had this and it works that it has to be covered under my commercial or any other insurance,' said Ellis, who advocates for other former trial participants. Even if companies still make replacement parts for older devices, she added, availability and accessibility are entirely different things given most people can't afford continued care without insurance coverage. Seeger, whose device was implanted in 2012 at Emory, said she went without a working device for around four months when the insurance coverage her wife's job at Emory provided wouldn't pay for battery replacement surgery. Neither would Medicare, which generally only covers DBS for FDA-approved uses. With her research team at Emory advocating for her, Seeger ultimately got financial help from the hospital's indigent care program and paid a few thousand dollars out of pocket. She now has a rechargeable battery, and the device has been working well. But at any point, she said that could change. Federal cuts stall solutions – Lázaro-Muñoz hoped his work would protect people like Seeger and Ellis. 'We should do whatever we can as a society to be able to help them maintain their health,' he said. Lázaro-Muñoz's project received about $987,800 from the National Institute of Mental Health in the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years and was already underway when he was notified of the NIH funding cut in May. He declined to answer questions about it. Ellis said any delay in addressing the thorny issues around experimental brain devices hurts patients. 'Planning at the beginning of a clinical trial about how to continue treatment and maintain devices,' she said, 'would be much better than depending on the kindness of researchers and the whims of insurers.' 'If this turns off, I get sick again. Like, I'm not cured,' she said. 'This is a treatment that absolutely works but only as long as I've got a working device.'
