Alaska Earthquake: Powerful Jolts Send Small Community Fleeing

“I might have expected a little bit more water, but I’m happy that there wasn’t,” said David Hale, the senior duty scientist at the tsunami center.

Tuesday’s quake was more powerful than the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that caused damage in the Anchorage area in November 2018.

“This earthquake released about 15 times as much energy as that earthquake, said West, the state seismologist.

More than a dozen aftershocks of magnitude 4.0 or higher were reported immediately after the earthquake, he said from the Alaska Earthquake Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

”We got people here who are going to be working all night,” West said early Wednesday morning. ”These aftershocks will go and go and go and go.”

The Alaska-Aleutian Trench was also where a magnitude 9.2 quake in 1964 was centered. That remains the second most powerful earthquake ever recorded.

The temblor and ensuing tsunami caused widespread damage and killed 131 people, some as far away as Oregon and California.

Alaska is the most actively seismic state. Nearly 25,000 earthquakes have been recorded in Alaska since Jan. 1, according to the center. 

(Writer: Mark Thiessen) 

Source: https://apnews.com/6e17ff15281994947a180033380ff930