Quake rocks remote Russian region

The quake struck 1,000km north of the nearest big city

An earthquake of 7.7 magnitude has rattled villages on Russia's remote Kamchatka Peninsula but there were no immediate reports of serious injury.

The tremor struck at around 1230 (2330 GMT Thursday) in an area 1,000km (625 miles) north of Kamchatka's largest city, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

A school, two nurseries, a hospital and a runway were damaged in one village where power supplies were also hit.

US geologists say it was the strongest quake in the area since 1900.

It struck at Ilpyrskiy at a depth of roughly 12.6km, the US Geological Survey reports.

Some 2,000 people would have been exposed to "intensive shaking", a spokeswoman said.

Several people suffered light injuries in the village of Tilichiki where most damage was reported, Russian news agencies say.

Emergency investigators have been sent by helicopter to the area to assess the situation.