An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 occurred Wednesday off the Kuril Islands in Russia, to a depth of 59 km, said the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS). It fired about 1,400 kilometers northeast of the Japanese city of Sapporo, the USGS said. For its part, the US National Center for Tsunami Warnings said it "was analyzing the event to determine the level of danger".
"This earthquake has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami in the region of origin," he also warned. The Kurils are an archipelago located at the eastern end of the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
The four southernmost islands of the Kurils - Habomai, Shikotan, Etorofu and Kunashiri - have been the subject of a dispute between Moscow and Tokyo since the end of the Second World War. The Kurils are called Northern Territories in Japan.