A powerful earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka has caused a tsunami, with evacuations declared in Japan and Hawaii

A powerful earthquake occurred off the coast of Russia's Kamchatka, resulting in a tsunami hitting the shore of Kamchatka, with warnings of waves up to three meters high issued to all coastal territories of the northern Pacific Ocean all the way to California.

According to preliminary data, there are no casualties. The Minister of Health of the Kamchatka Territory, Oleg Melnikov, said that several people were injured as a result of the earthquake.

"There are people who were injured while running out. There is a patient who jumped out of a window. Unfortunately, a woman in the new airport building was injured. All patients are in satisfactory condition. No serious injuries have been recorded at the moment," TASS news agency quotes Melnikov.

The earthquake with a magnitude of 8.7, according to the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences, occurred approximately 150 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, with the earthquake's epicenter at a depth of 17 km.

According to seismologists, this is the strongest earthquake in the region since the earthquake and tsunami of 1952, when at least 2,000 people died in the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka.