An earthquake measuring magnitude 4.4 struck Russia's Novosibirsk Region on Tuesday, September 15, with its epicenter in an area of coal open-pit mines in the Iskitim district, scientists reported.
The tremor was recorded by specialists at the Altai-Sayan branch of the Unified Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the institution responsible for monitoring seismic activity across the country.
The quake struck at 21:01 local time (17:01 Moscow time) on September 15, according to the scientists. Its epicenter was located about 12 kilometers east of Iskitim, a town in the Novosibirsk Region known for its coal and limestone quarries, located south of Novosibirsk, the regional capital and Russia's third-largest city.
A 'perceptible' earthquake
Seismologists classify a magnitude of 4.4 as a perceptible earthquake, meaning it can be felt by people and is capable of causing moderate damage close to its epicenter. Earthquake magnitude is measured on a logarithmic scale, so each whole-number increase represents a tenfold rise in measured ground motion and roughly 32 times more energy released.
RAS said no information on casualties or destruction in the Iskitim district had been reported.
The Novosibirsk region, in southwestern Siberia, does not typically rank among Russia's most seismically active areas. That contrasts with the Kuril Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula on the Pacific coast, both part of the seismically volatile Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes and volcanic activity occur far more frequently.
Earlier tremor in the Kuril Islands
The Novosibirsk earthquake came hours after a separate, unrelated tremor measuring magnitude 4.2 struck the Kuril Islands earlier the same day. That quake was recorded at 22:38 local time (14:38 Moscow time) on September 15.
Its epicenter lay 72 kilometers east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a settlement said to have around 2,400 residents. The Kuril Islands are a volcanic chain running between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan. No casualties or damage were reported from that earthquake either.
