MOSCOW (Reuters) -A team of medics was in the middle of surgery in the Far Eastern Russian city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky when Wednesday’s very powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake shook their equipment and the floor beneath them.
The medics used their hands to try to steady both the patient and their equipment, CCTV footage released by the Kamchatka region’s Health Ministry showed.
“Despite the danger, the doctors remained calm and stayed with the patient until the very end,” Oleg Melnikov, the minister, wrote on Telegram. He gave no details of the surgery but added that the patient was currently out of danger.
Russian scientists said the quake off the coast of Kamchatka, which triggered tsunami warnings as far away as Hawaii, Japan and Chile, was the most powerful to hit the region since 1952.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been no casualties in Russia from the quake, crediting solid building construction and the smooth working of alert systems.
Still, there were scenes of chaos along Russia’s remote and sparsely populated Far Eastern seaboard, and scattered reports of damage.
Roman Kripakov, a chef in Severo-Kurilsk on Paramushir, one of the Pacific Kuril Islands chain, said he was at the cafe where he works when it began to shake.
“We ran out onto the street, and saw that all the buildings were trembling. Pipes, bricks, they were all falling down from the roofs,” he told Reuters
“Did I think about death? Yes, it did come to mind. I asked everyone for forgiveness, and recalled happy moments in my life. I wrote to my wife.”
A verified video shot by a Severo-Kurilsk resident showed water engulfing a fish processing plant as it rushed inland, carrying a lightweight metal building and containers with it.
A woman can be heard cursing as she laments the loss of the plant. “Our factory is sinking along with our seafood production,” she says.
Elsewhere on the Kamchatka Peninsula, video showed startled sea lions diving into the sea as the quake hit Antsiferov Island, just off the coast.
The island is known as a natural habitat for Steller sea lions, a large, near-threatened species.
(Writing by Felix LightEditing by Frances Kerry)
