Why one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded caused so little damage

Los Angeles Times ^ | July 30, 2025 3:55 PM PT | Rong-Gong Lin II and Clara Harter

[E. Pluribus Unum]

SAN FRANCISCO — It was one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, a magnitude 8.8 monster off the eastern coast of Russia.

Despite its remote location, the size of the quake immediately brought potential danger of tsunami to a significant swath of the globe, including Japan, Canada and the United States. Tsunami alerts immediately went out, covering millions of people, including the entire U.S. West Coast.

But for all its strength, the quake ended up not being a catastrophe. Dangerous waves that rose more than 10 feet never materialized outside of Russia, and even there, officials had no reports of deaths, and damage appeared to be limited.

“In this case, we mostly dodged a bullet,” said Mike Rademaker, harbormaster for the Crescent City Harbor, a place that saw deadly tsunamis both in 1964 with the Alaska mega-quake and 2011 when the great Japanese quake hit.

While those events represent worst-case scenarios, Tuesday’s temblor represents a best-case scenario.

“With tsunamis, location and directionality is everything,” said Nathan Wood, a tsunami scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The area near the epicenter off Siberia’s Kamchatka Peninsula did see damage, but it was sparsely populated. Video of the town of Severo-Kurilsk, on an island just off the peninsula, showed a building being swept away.

But for areas farther out, initial modeling suggests the tsunami’s energy was directed into the open Pacific Ocean, roughly between Alaska and Hawaii, and had time to weaken before it hit more populated areas.

“It just kind of shot right between the two of those [states],” Wood said.

The tsunami “impacted the local community that was right next to the source [earthquake] where it happened,” Wood said. “But for everyone else, it kind of just shot right down this empty hallway — in between the Aleutian Islands chain and...

[God luvs America]

My buddy is in Japan with his wife as his daughter is married to a guy in the Air Force and they are stationed on Okinawa- the grandson celebrated his first bday so they made the trip...

I texted him last night and he had no idea about the earthquake i was talking about- felt nothing, heard nothing and even though they were on a hill, saw nothing different in the water...

He did text me, “my phone sirens were going off but everything was in Japanese, so i didn’t pay attention”....

[lee martell]

Luckily, the impact of the quake eluded the Aleutians.

[C210N]

It was odd that there was a large update from 8.0 to 8.8.

Perhaps the USGS’s algorithm glitched.

[smokingfrog]

Would the depth of the water at the epicenter of the earthquake have some effect?

[KamperKen]

The biggest quakes in modern times in the USA also did very little damage, the New Madrid quakes of 1811 and 1812. The largest of the three largest was estimated to be over 8 on the magnitude scale. They were centered in the largely unsettled areas of what’s now Missouri.

[No name given]

That’s true.

[linMcHlp]

Posted by AdmSmith:

An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.7 struck near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a city located in the same bay that hosts several key Russian submarine facilities and naval infrastructure. Given the quake's intensity and the resulting tsunami, some damage is possible.

The earthquake's epicenter was located roughly over 100 kilometers from Avacha Bay, home to Russia's Pacific Fleet, which hosts both diesel and nuclear submarines. Early footage from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, indicates damage from both ground shaking and tsunami.

The bay has multiple installations, but three stand out: the North-Eastern Repair Center, which services both diesel and nuclear submarines; the Rybachiy Submarine Base, home to Pacific Fleet submarines; and a specialized SLBM loading jetty used for arming submarines.

The infrastructure is situated directly along the shoreline, elevated roughly 3 to 6 meters above sea level. The extent of damage from the earthquake itself remains unclear. As for the tsunami, if wave heights exceed 3 meters, some impact to the facilities can be expected.

As of July 17th, high-resolution imagery, which we can't publish due to licensing restrictions, shows 5 submarines docked at the pier. In lower-resolution imagery from July 20th, at least 3 are visible and marked in white. The location of two other submarines are marked yellow

High-resolution imagery that could allow for a preliminary damage assessment is expected in the coming days. Once reviewed, updates will follow.

https://x.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1950416018897326164

[Hyman Roth]

Global warming?

[frank ballenger]

As we all rubbed it in about the inability to predict weather a week in the future but we’e supposed to trust them as experts about the future caused by man made climate change.

Here’s another. Believe them, hear the sirens, run, watch for the carnage. Then nothing.

I remember the prima donna narcissists on the Weather Channel totally misread a predicted gigantic snow and ice event which never happened and the network brass gave the order when angry citizens chanted in the background: “Where’s the storm?” to “Get them all out of there. Now.” The on air idiots had to rush out of town.

[Huskrrrr]

According to Dutchsinse, most sensors run by other countries reported 7.8 for the earthquake.

[Bonemaker]

“Why one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded caused so little damage”

Climate change?

[basalt]

those quakes rang church bells all the way to Boston...

[lefty-lie-spy]

I win. I knew the answer before reading the first sentence.

“its remote location”

[nagant]

Overthrust movement is when the real tsunami damage happens. This quake was generated by slip-strike movement.

[fso301]

Weren’t there a couple of other large sized quakes in the northern Pacific area recently?

[packrat35]

This was a best-case scenario. Hopefully, it doesn’t make people complacent next time. There have been several serious deadly tsunamis in the past 20 years. Better safe than sorry.

[packrat35]

It’s not unusual for it to be updated later after more data is analyzed.