AmberGran
The earthquake and volcano could have been much, much worse. The Kamchatka peninsula is where the Russian Pacific fleet is housed, and Avacha Bay is the base for their nuclear submarines. Satellite pictures are showing damage to the base, with some piers twisted out of place following the tsunami. The Russians say the base was built to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis and protect the fleet but I think we were all probably quite lucky this time around.
In many places all ships in ports were ordered out to sea, because in the open sea a tsunami will be nothing but a large swell in the sea that ships of aall szes will float ove, almost without noticing.
i would imagine that as soon as the earthquake happened the Russian fleet would have been ordered out to sea until the tsunami fear had passed. Any damage to port installations was probably done by the earthquake - and this would be less likely to affect the ships in port at the time.

