Powerful quake shakes Russian island

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MOSCOW, April 7 (AFP): A powerful quake of magnitude 7.0 struck near the Kuril Islands, an archipelago in the North Pacific disputed between Russia and Japan, US seismologists said.
There was "no destructive widespread tsunami threat" but local tsunamis could threaten coastlines within 100 kilometres of the epicentre, the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.
Russian seismologists put the magnitude of the quake at 6.8, according to RIA Novosti news agency, which said it happened near the unhabited volcanic island of Simushir.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center also put the magnitude at 6.8.
The quake hit 295 kilometres northeast of the town of Kurilsk at a depth of 39.1 kilometres at 0423 GMT, the National Earthquake Information Centre of the US Geological Survey said on its website.
The Kuril Islands are the site of frequent earthquakes.
The southern part of the archipelago is the subject of a territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo dating back to World War II, but Simushir lies north of the disputed area and is agreed by both sides to be Russian territory.