• 8.8 magnitude quake strikes near city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
• Tsunami of 3-5 metres recorded in Kamchatka Peninsula
• Tsunami waves reach French Polynesia but smaller than feared
• Warnings issued, then downgraded in Japan, Hawaii
• Galapagos Islands order evacuations as tsunami warnings rock Pacific

July 30 (Reuters) - A very powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka coast on Wednesday triggered tsunami warnings as far away as French Polynesia and Chile, and was followed by an eruption of the most active volcano on the peninsula.

The shallow quake damaged buildings and injured several people in the remote Russian region, while much of Japan's eastern seaboard - devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 - was ordered to evacuate, as were parts of Hawaii