BREAKING: Massive 8.8 Magnitude Earthquake Struck Russia, Tsunami Alert Issued in Japan

BREAKING: Massive 8.8 Magnitude Earthquake Struck Russia, Tsunami Alert Issued in Japan

One of the world's biggest earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday, shaking buildings, damaging homes, and triggering urgent tsunami warnings across the Pacific region.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said destructive tsunami waves could reach parts of Russia and Japan within hours of the quake.The quake struck at a shallow depth of 19.3 kilometers (12 miles), just 125 km (80 miles) southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a major city in eastern Russia. It happened near the coast of Avacha Bay, a seismically active zone in the Pacific Ring of Fire.

The USGS initially recorded the quake at magnitude 8.0, but later upgraded it to 8.8, making it one of the most powerful quakes in the region in decades.

Dramatic videos posted on social media show the moment buildings began to shake. In one of the video, furniture sways and crashes inside a home.Another video from a Russian seismic monitoring center captures the moment the earthquake was detected, immediately triggering emergency sirens.