The 2013 Okhotsk Sea earthquake occurred with a moment magnitude of 8.3 at 15:44:49 local time (05:44:49

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

) on 24 May. It had an

epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...

in the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...

and affected primarily (but not only) Asian Russia, especially the

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

where the shaking lasted for five minutes.

Earthquake

The earthquake had a moment magnitude of 8.3 and was the largest to strike

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

since

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

. Due to its great depth of 609 km, it was not particularly intense at the surface, but was felt over a very large area. Such a deep-focus earthquake could be felt not only in areas surrounding the Okhotsk Sea but also in places as far as

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

( JMA 1, about 2,400 km away from the epicenter),

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

(more than 4,000 km away), Atyrau ( MMI V, about 7,200 km away),

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

(about 7,400 km away), and

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

(about 8,100 km away). Maximum recorded JMA intensity was Shindo 3 (equivalent to IV (''Light'') on the MMI Scale). A related aftershock with a magnitude 6.7 occurred at 02:56 local time (14:52

on 24 May), 9 hours after the earthquake, producing a

supershear earthquake In seismology, a supershear earthquake is when the propagation of the Earthquake rupture, rupture along the Fault (geology), fault surface occurs at speeds in excess of the seismic S wave, shear wave (S wave) velocity. This causes an effect analo ...

. It was an extremely deep () supershear as well as unusually fast at "eight kilometers per second (five miles per second), nearly 50 percent faster than the shear wave velocity at that depth".

Impact

, the shaking caused almost 900 residents to be evacuated from their homes. In the city, small cracks appeared in several buildings. In

Samara Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...

, a poorly constructed house collapsed and seventeen others were slightly damaged, despite the shaking being so weak there. In

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, one person had to be medically cared for in an office block due to nausea caused by the swaying building. In

Yakutsk Yakutsk ( ) is the capital and largest city of Sakha, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of Russia's most rapidly growing regional cities, with a population of 355,443 at the ...

, 1,500 km from the epicenter, a bridge cracked. In

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, a school was evacuated due to the shaking.

References

External links

Seismologists puzzle over largest deep earthquake ever recorded
– University of California, Santa Cruz * Earthquakes in the Russian Far East Okhotsk Sea May 2013 in Russia Supershear earthquakes 2013 disasters in Russia {{Asia-earthquake-stub

Earthquake

Impact

See also

References

External links