VIDEO: Russian volcano erupts for first time in centuries after magnitude 8.8 quake
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1 week ago
A volcano that was dormant for centuries roared back to life Sunday on Russia’s far-eastern coast, the latest fallout from last week’s historic magnitude 8.8 earthquake in that same region.
KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA – A massive column of ash erupts from the Krasheninnikov volcano in Russia’s eastern Kamchatka region, marking its first eruption since 1550, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, on August 03, 2025. The eruption comes just days after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the region, the country’s emergency services reported on Sunday. (SHELDOVITSKY ARTEM IGOREVICH / INSTITUTE OF VOLCANOLOGY AND SEISMOLOGY OF THE FAR EASTERN BRANCH OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES / HANDOUT )
KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA – A massive column of ash erupts from the Krasheninnikov volcano in Russia’s eastern Kamchatka region, marking its first eruption since 1550, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, on August 03, 2025. The eruption comes just days after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the region, the country’s emergency services reported on Sunday. (SHELDOVITSKY ARTEM IGOREVICH / INSTITUTE OF VOLCANOLOGY AND SEISMOLOGY OF THE FAR EASTERN BRANCH OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES / HANDOUT )
KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA – A massive column of ash erupts from the Krasheninnikov volcano in Russia’s eastern Kamchatka region, marking its first eruption since 1550, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, on August 03, 2025. The eruption comes just days after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the region, the country’s emergency services reported on Sunday. (SHELDOVITSKY ARTEM IGOREVICH / INSTITUTE OF VOLCANOLOGY AND SEISMOLOGY OF THE FAR EASTERN BRANCH OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES / HANDOUT )
A Russian volcanologist said on state media that the eruption was directly related to the massive quake, which was the sixth strongest in recorded history.
Aerial video shows a massive plume of ash erupting from the volcano over the weekend.
An illustration from Stepan Krasheninnikov’s Account of the Land of Kamchatka (1755). The Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometer long peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of 472,300 km2 (182,400 sq mi). It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west. Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the 10,500-metre (34,400 ft) deep Kuril-Kamchatka Trench.
((Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
The Russian Academy of Sciences wrote in a Telegram post that the ash plume could impact local and international air travel.
Another volcano in the region, the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano, erupted a day after the July 30 magnitude 8.8 quake, but it had erupted as recently as 2022, according to the Smithsonian.