7.7-Magnitude Quake Hits Russia

A major earthquake shook a sparsely populated region of Russia's Far East early Friday, injuring 31 people and damaging buildings, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. No deaths were reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey and Japan's Meteorological Agency estimated the temblor just off the Kamchatka Peninsula to be about 7.7 magnitude. Russia's north Pacific coast is on a major tectonic plate and frequently is hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The quake hit at around 12:30 p.m. Friday (2330 GMT Thursday) in the Koryak region, nearly 4,350 miles east of Moscow and some 625 miles north of the largest city in the area, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, said Oleg Kotosanov, a duty officer with the regional emergency department.

It was followed by a series of smaller temblors, including one with a magnitude of 6.1 that was registered five hours later, the USGS said.

Still, the damage appeared to be minimal.

"It is either a wall cracked, or part of the roof, or a porch collapsed," Koryak emergency official Alexander Shchayev told The Associated Press.

While there have already been three major tremors and a number of smaller ones, he noted, "there have not been any reports of the loss of life."

Fourteen villages, with more than 11,800 residents altogether, were affected, said Yulia Stadnikova, spokeswoman for the federal Emergency Situations Ministry. Thirty-one people were injured, including seven who were hospitalized, she said.

Damaged buildings included a school, two nursery schools and residential buildings, another ministry spokesman said. The ITAR-Tass news agency said many residents of the region, where temperatures were minus 18 Celsius, were afraid to return to their homes and had made bonfires to warm themselves and to cook.

Another Koryak emergency official, Viktor Styopkin, said minor injuries had been reported.

Styopkin said the quake had knocked out telephone service in the region, because the local exchange was located in Tilichiki, a village of 2,000. The quake also made the village's airfield unusable, he said: one-third of the runway was cracked and the rest was under water.

Reconnaissance helicopters were sent to check the damage, and more than 300 emergency response workers were flown to the region from Khabarovsk to deliver tents, radiators and other supplies and to help restore communications. Planes carrying medicines, diesel generators, blankets, warm clothes and more tents were set to leave Ramenskoye, near Moscow, on Friday evening.

Russian news agencies said buildings including schools and a hospital in Tilichiki had been damaged, along with municipal electric and heating systems.

"It's the largest event in this area since 1900," U.S. Geological Survey spokeswoman A.B. Wade told the AP. "It's a sparsely populated area; up to 2,000 people were exposed to intensive shaking."

The USGS said the initial quake occurred about 30 miles below the surface of the Earth.

In 1995, a quake of magnitude 7.5 leveled the town of Neftegorsk in northern Sakhalin Island, killing some 2,000 people.

By comparison, the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, which destroyed more than half of the city's buildings and left between 3,000 and 6,000 people dead, was estimated at a magnitude of between 7.7 and 7.9.

Emergency Situations Ministry officials sent rescuers and supplies to the Kamchatka Peninsula in summer 2005 in anticipation of a major earthquake, Russian media reported. They were to have been on standby until mid-December of last year.