Earthquake in Kamchatka Also Recorded in Slovakia, No Increased Activity

Bratislava, 1 August (TASR) - This week's powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka coast was recorded by seismic stations across the globe, including Slovakia, Lucia Fojtikova from the seismology department at the Earth Sciences Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences told TASR on Friday, noting that the arrival time of the seismic wave from the quake on the Russian peninsula to the territory of Slovakia was about 12 minutes. Fojtikova added that no increased seismic activity is currently being recorded in Slovakia. "Stations of the National Network of Seismic Stations have been registering increased activity in Kamchatka since 20 June. Since the beginning of the increased seismic activity, seismic stations in Slovakia have recorded hundreds of seismic events from this area," she said, adding that the waves with the largest amplitudes in Slovakia were a group of surface waves that reached an amplitude of two to three millimetres. "The direct manifestations of the earthquake with epicentre in Kamchatka were small in Slovakia, in terms of recorded ground movements, due to the distance of the earthquake, and couldn't be felt by the people in our territory," she added. A strong earthquake struck on Wednesday (30 July) the area off the coast of Kamchatka. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), it reached a magnitude of 8.8. It was the strongest earthquake since March 2011 and the sixth-strongest earthquake ever recorded by seismometers. am/mcs