Earthquake of magnitude M 8.8 in Kamchatka: GFZ

07/30/2025 Earthquakes Worldwide 2-4 Seismologie 2-2 Geophysikalische Abbildung des Untergrunds Slider

The quakeoff the east coast of the Russian peninsula at 1:24 a.m. CEST is the strongest worldwide since 2011. A tsunami warning had been issued for the Pacific.

A jittery measurement curve shows peaks of up to two and lows of minus four. The time is shown on the x-axis. The largest peaks occurred around 1:24 a.m. — The seismic waves from the earthquake near Kamchatka on Russia's east coast were also recorded at the GFZ's GEOFON station in Rüdersdorf, east of Berlin (see figure). There, the ground moved by around six millimetres – two millimetres of uplift and four millimetres of subsidence. *(GEOFON/Saul/GFZ)*

What we know so far

At 1:24 a.m. CEST, an earthquake with a magnitude M 8.8 struck off the east coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia). It is the strongest earthquake worldwide since 2011. A tsunami warning has been issued for the Pacific. The first waves have reached Japan and Hawaii. US media reported a maximum wave height of 1.7 metre in Hawaii and similar maximum values locally along the western US coast. According to media reports, the tsunami warnings have now been lifted in many countries.

According to the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, the origin of the earthquake was located at a depth of 21 kilometres. The sequence and the location of the aftershocks indicate that the earthquake rupture is approximately 500 kilometres long.

The seismic waves were also recorded at the GFZ's GEOFON station in Rüdersdorf near Berlin, Germany. There, the ground moved by around 6 millimetres – two millimetres upwards and more than four millimetres downwards.

Numerous aftershocks, some of them severe, with magnitudes of up to M 6.7 were recorded. The M 8.8 quake is the strongest in a series that began on July 20, 2025, with a M 7.4 quake and several quakes with magnitudes above 6 on the same day. Experts at the GFZ expect further aftershocks that could reach magnitudes above 6.

The quake was a so-called subduction zone megathrust earthquake. Subduction means that one tectonic plate—in this case, the Pacific Plate—collides with and sinks beneath another, the Eurasian Plate. Large parts of the Pacific coast are subduction zones, which not only cause frequent and severe earthquakes but also volcanic activity. This is why the Pacific coastline along the coasts of North and South America, as well as the Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, New Zealand and Indonesian Pacific coasts, is referred to as the circum-pacific “Ring of Fire”.

The last time that a mega-earthquake, with a magnitude of M 9.0, occurred in Kamchatka was in 1952. At that time, there was a tsunami with waves over 15 meters high and several thousand people died. Although the current earthquake was similarly strong with a magnitude of M 8.8, the tsunami waves were much lower. According to Russian media reports, waves between three and five meters high were reported in the immediate vicinity of the epicenter on the coast of Kamchatka. In Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and on the west coast of the US, waves slightly over one meter high were reported.