1st LD Writethru: 6.3-magnitude earthquake hits off east coast of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula

MOSCOW, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the eastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences said Monday.

The quake occurred at 22:33 Moscow time (1933 GMT) with its epicenter located about 227 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital, at a depth of 75 km, according to the local geophysical service.

Local emergency authorities said that no tsunami warning has been issued.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported earlier that the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.7 on the Richter scale.