'Ring of Fire': The most dangerous area on the planet and why it concentrates earthquakes

Following the strong 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck this Wednesday, July 30, 2025, about 130 kilometers (km) off the east coast of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, a series of alerts have been issued regarding possible impacts in countries on the American continent.

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It's worth noting that Kamchatka is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, also known as the Ring of Fire. It extends to the Aleutian Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean, between Alaska and the Kamchatka Peninsula, and extends to include the coasts and islands of Russia, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia , East Timor, Brunei, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, and New Zealand, covering an area of 40,000 square kilometers. The risk of this Ring of Fire is that it passes through the largest number of volcanoes in the world and even the planet's supervolcanoes.

"Ninety percent of all the world's earthquakes and 80% of the largest earthquakes occur in the Pacific Ring of Fire ," Hernando Taveras, executive president of the Peruvian Geophysical Institute (IGP), explained in a previous interview with BBC Mundo.

The Pacific Ocean floor rests on several tectonic plates, and " the fact that seismic activity is intense in the Ring of Fire is due to their convergence and friction, which causes tension to build up and be released ," Taveras noted.

Alerts

In light of this strong earthquake, evacuation orders were issued for parts of Russia, Japan, the United States, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Chile. Evacuation orders were also issued for Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama.

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Among the impacts, this earthquake generated a tsunami with waves 3 to 4 meters high off the coast of Kamchatka, according to Sergei Lebedev, the regional emergency minister.

These tsunami waves reached Hawaii Island and the west coast of the United States. According to data from the United States Geological Survey, this is the sixth most powerful earthquake on record.

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