Magnitude 5 quake hits Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY. May 15 (Interfax) - A magnitude 5 quake has been registered in the Avacha Bay off the eastern coast of Kamchatka, the Kamchatka branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS)'s United Geophysical Service said in a statement.

The quake occurred at 3:02 a.m. on Wednesday. It nested 96 kilometers under the seabed and had an epicenter 78 kilometers southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

In turn, the Kamchatka territorial branch of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry told Interfax that an earthquake of grade 3 intensity hit the city.

The ministry reported another two quakes inside and outside Kamchatka on Wednesday morning. One of them had an epicenter 38 kilometers from Ust-Kamchatsk, and the other's epicenter was located 26 kilometers from the village of Nikolskoye on Bering Island, one of the Commander Islands, in the Aleutsky district of the Kamchatka Territory. The quakes had a magnitude of 4.1 and 4.7, respectively. Those tremors did not reach populated localities.