A 5.0 magnitude earthquake occurred 108 km southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy in Russia on Tuesday at 13:57 local time, reported the Hindustan Times citing seismic monitoring systems in the Russian Far East.

Preliminary reports indicate that the earthquake happened offshore at a moderate depth, possibly reducing surface effects.

The Pacific Plate has been shifting, making the Kamchatka Peninsula off Russia’s Far East coast particularly susceptible to tremors. Larger aftershocks are also possible, the report said.

This earthquake has been reported to be the most devastating since the 2011 Tohoku quake, which occurred near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and caused a tsunami that resulted in the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Following this, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands, raising fears of tsunami waves in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East.

“The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” news agency Reuters quoted Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Services.

Meanwhile, the Krasheninnikov Volcano in Kamchatka erupted overnight for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA state news agency and scientists reported on Sunday.

Both the incidents may be linked to the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that shook Russia’s Far East, which prompted tsunami warnings as far away as French Polynesia and Chile, and was followed by an eruption of Klyuchevskoy, the most active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

“This is the first historically confirmed eruption of Krasheninnikov Volcano in 600 years,” the report quoted RIA, citing Olga Girina, head of the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team.

On the Telegram channel of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Girina noted that Krasheninnikov’s most recent lava eruption occurred around 40 years after 1463, and there have been no eruptions recorded since then.