Updated: October 20, 2020 7:37:28 am
A motorcyclist leads a line of cars leaving Homer Spit approximately Monday, October 19, 2020 in Homer, Alaska, after a tsunami evacuation order was issued for low-lying areas in Homer. (Michael Armstrong / Homer News via AP)
Howling sirens prompted residents to seek higher ground in communities along Alaska’s southern coast after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake that shook buildings triggered a tsunami watch on Monday.
The quake had its epicenter near Sand Point, a city of about 900 people off the Alaska Peninsula, where the wave level reached 2 feet, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center. The warning was downgraded to a warning just over two hours after the earthquake.
Patrick Mayer, superintendent of the Aleutians East Borough School District, said parents picked up the children from Sand Point School, which also served as an evacuation point. He said a school bus was also sent to a fish processing facility to take workers to school.
“We are on very high ground,” he said. Mayer was unaware of any structural damage and said officials planned to reopen the school normally on Tuesday.
The earthquake struck in the North Pacific Ocean shortly before 1 p.m. and was centered about 67 miles (118 kilometers) southeast of Sand Point, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center. The community is located about 800 miles (1,288 km) southwest of Anchorage. The earthquake was recorded at a depth of 30 kilometers (19 miles).
The National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said the tsunami warning was in effect for about 950 miles (1,529 kilometers), from 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Homer to Unimak Pass, about 80 miles (129 km) northeast of Unalaska. .
The earthquake was widely felt in communities along the southern coast, including Sand Point, Chignik, Unalaska and the Kenai Peninsula, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center, which said a 5.2 magnitude aftershock was reported 11 minutes later, centered in roughly the same area.
Sand Point School, with 130 students, is the only school in the community, Mayer said, but said the other four schools in the district felt the earthquake to varying degrees. The closest school is 90 miles away, he said.
Some schools in the Kenai Peninsula Township School District were being evacuated to higher ground, the district said on Twitter.
Public safety officials in King Cove sent out an alert urging coastal area residents to move inland to higher ground.
The size of the earthquake was originally reported to be a magnitude 7.4, but has been revised to 7.5, said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey. He said that an earthquake of this size, in this area, is not a surprise.
“This is an area where the Pacific plate is subducting below the North American plate. And because of that, the Pacific Plate actually goes under the North American Plate, where it melts, ”Caruso said, noting that this is why there are volcanoes in the region. “So we commonly have large magnitude 7 earthquakes in that area.”
Unalaska officials sent a message saying the city is outside the warning zone and they are not ordering evacuations at this time. Unalaska public safety officials had issued a statement on Monday saying they would test the community’s tsunami warning sirens.
“He was a good shaker here,” said David Adams, co-director of Marine View Bed and Breakfast at Sand Point. “We are doing well.” He said that all guests were taken into account and that “the structure itself is solid.”
“You could see that the water was shaking and shimmering during the earthquake,” he said. “Our truck was rocking big.” He didn’t take any photos or video: “It just happened suddenly.”
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