An earthquake with magnitude of 6.9 struck near Ozernovsky village in the southern part of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula early on Friday. Its effect was felt in the city of Hakodate in Japan, according to The Japan Times , leading the country’s meteorological agency to issue an early warning that erroneously mentioned the magnitude of 9.9. That warning was withdrawn minutes later, but if it had been true, this would have been the strongest earthquake in the history of mankind, surpassing the 1960 quake that struck Chile.
Some of the most powerful earthquakes measured by instrument include: Though no official data has been released about such a megathrust quake, experts say a 9.9-magnitude tremor would release roughly 32,000 times more energy than today’s 6.9 quake, and significantly more than the 1960 Chile and 2011 Tohoku quakes, according to US Geological Survey . A magnitude 12 earthquake would require a fault larger than the earth itself.
The magnitude scale is open-ended, meaning that scientists have not put a limit on how large an earthquake could be, but there is a limit just from the size of the earth, according to USGS.
